NORTH Yorkshire's biggest open-air Proms of the summer welcomes Yorkshire soprano Lesley Garrett to Castle Howard on Saturday.

She will be joined in the natural amphitheatre between the grand country house and the Great Lake by tenor Geraint Dodd, the London Gala Orchestra, conducted by Stephen Bell, and 75 members of York Musical Society, along with thousands of picnicking concertgoers.

"It's a very inspiring setting; I probably should sing Bless This House!" says Lesley. "I've never sung there before, though I've visited Castle Howard, so it's a place I know well."

She loves such occasions. "I did the same programme with the London Gala Orchestra at Bedford Park earlier this summer, which went fantastically well," says Lesley. "What I think is wonderful about these outdoor shows is that they're true family entertainment with three or even four generations of a family coming along. There's lovely food, lovely music, fireworks and the big Proms-style finale.

"I sometimes think it's taken the place of 'community music', something I went to as a child with brass bands playing, or families singing by the fireside at home. It's like going back to my childhood [in Thorne, South Yorkshire], and I don't think I'm ever happier than when I'm singing at a community event, like singing Abide With Me at the Cup Final, which I did twice at the old Wembley, twice at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, and twice since Wembley was rebuilt.

"Or the Bedford Park concert, where I was looking out at five or six thousand people all singing those Proms songs that are national institutions and that's a fantastic feeling."

Performing with conductor Stephen Bell, who Lesley has known "for years", she will sing songs by "popular request", whether from Carmen, Carmen Jones, La Traviata or I Could Have Danced All Night from My Fair Lady. "That was the show that got me started on the musical circuit when I went off piste, doing My Fair Lady at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra – 120 players! – in this vast space. That led me to do The Sound Of Music, playing the Mother Abbess opposite Connie Fisher," she recalls.

York Press:

"I started off as an 'ordinary opera singer', if there is such a thing," says Lesley Garrett

This set off Lesley into reflecting on her past. "I've had quite a diverse career, starting off as an 'ordinary opera singer', if there is such a thing; being a principal soprano for the English National Opera; performing in Europe and the United States; then meeting my husband in my 30s and having two children, and a result of that not wanting to work overseas any more," she says.

"But I was offered the chance to make albums and appear on television, so there was a period in the 1990s, where all hell broke loose. I got my recording contract and did a series of BBC shows, and they were wonderful programmes to do. I could indulge my love of musicals and have Bryn Terfel and Michael Ball singing on the same show. I was in heaven!"

When Lesley realised "people were no longer offering me opera roles any more, thinking I'd given up to do musicals", she set about playing roles for Opera North in Leeds and has since performed a series of parts written for "older, powerful, still beautiful women".

Maintaining this momentum, Lesley, now 63, will appear alongside Dame Josephine Barstow at the London Coliseum next year in Ian Bell's new work, Jack the Ripper: The Women Of Whitechapel, where the Ripper's story is told through the eyes of his victims.

Before all that comes this weekend's "home" engagement at the Castle Howard Proms. "It's going to be nice doing something back home, now I'm living at Epworth on the Yorkshire-Lincolnshire border. I was born in Thorner, so I love any excuse to come home for a concert," she says.

"And I'm very pleased that I'll be singing You'll Never Walk Alone with York Musical Society as I grew up with choral singing in Yorkshire."

Castle Howard Proms, with Lesley Garrett, Saturday; gates open at 5pm for 7.30pm start and 10pm laser and firework finale. Box office: lphconcerts.co.uk until 4pm on Friday, then on the gate only.