(Photo: Julien Gazeau)

Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston is rapidly making a name for herself in the world of classical music, especially for her expressive renditions of works from the baroque period. She already has a substantial discography, including the award-winning 2022 release, “Battle Cry,” and the fascinating disc of contemporary music, entitled “Isolation Songbook,” which was created in response to the Covid lockdowns.

Critics have welcomed both her recordings and live performances, praising her as “one of the most exciting singers in the new generation of British singers,” while drawing attention to her “variety of vocalization,” “swift shifts of tone and color” and “exemplary intonation and diction.” She is also a fabulous storyteller; listen to any of her recordings and you will immediately find examples of her ability to bring the narrative of a song thrillingly to life.

Yet there is so much more to Helen Charlston. As OperaWire discovered in this interview, Helen would certainly not appreciate being pigeonholed as being a baroque specialist, notwithstanding her undoubted skill and feeling for the music of the period. Rather, she appears determined to ignore the boundaries between genres and to explore classical music in all its forms.

OperaWire: You come from a musical family. To what extent has this guided you into a career in music?

Helen Charlston: I spent a lot of my time growing up around music, which obviously helped me a lot, but my parents didn’t exert any pressure on me to follow a career in music. I was encouraged to learn the violin and the piano when I was young, and I still play the piano, occasionally in my concerts.

OW: What made you opt for singing rather than playing a musical instrument?

HC: That was never a question I needed to answer. I love singing! Also, I am not that good on the piano.

OW: What was your pathway into becoming a professional singer?

HC: I did a music degree at Cambridge and sang at Trinity College. After I finished there in 2015, I started doing a variety of ad hoc work. It was a useful period, in that it helped me to discover things I loved and things I didn’t really want to do and helped me realise the path I wanted to follow, which was to sing opera and do concert work. Over the past five years, my career has moved in this direction, which I am really happy about.

OW: I presume Covid came just at the wrong time for your career?

HC: Yes, definitely. It was a complicated time, but it did give me the breathing space to take stock. I knew there were things I needed to stop doing and others I needed to focus on. So, in a way, it was actually good timing.

OW: Did that include creating the ideas for and recording of the CD of contemporary music, entitled “Isolation Songbook”?

HC: Yes, contemporary music has always been an area of interest.

We commissioned 15 new pieces of music, which initially was for an online concert that actually turned out to be live performances as well, which we then went on to record.

OW: How would you describe your own voice?

HC: Many people tell me that my voice has quite a unique sound with a deep coloring. Definitely, I am a mezzo but with a sincerity and serious quality, so I sing a lot of Didos and similar characters. I also look for songs that match the qualities of my voice. I have a wide range of interests and can use different parts of my voice to sing different types of pieces. I particularly enjoy exploring my lower register and playing with its sound.

OW: Looking over your concert performances and recordings, it is clear that the baroque means a lot to you, but there is also a lot of contemporary music in there too. What is it about these two genres that attracts you?

HC: The question ties into what I was just saying: I like to explore what my voice can do, and contemporary music gives me the opportunity to work with composers to explore different areas of the voice that the current repertoire does not lean into.

With the baroque, I think the attraction lies in the fact that it was the sound world I grew up in, and, therefore, it has become a natural stepping stone for my voice. It also really suits my instrument, which will, of course, continue to develop, and so baroque music will remain part of my life.

I also sing other music as well. I do a lot of Mahler and Strauss and a lot of pieces by other composers.

However, I expect contemporary music to remain a constant in what I do.

OW: Do you have a favorite area that you would like to specialize in?

HC: I would like to try not to specialize. However, it is not easy. I know that I am associated with baroque music, and that is fine, as I am happy performing that repertoire. I am so lucky, as I work with amazing period instrumental ensembles from all over the world. But it is really important for me that I am not defined by this. I love romantic music so much, and there is a lot more to life than just the baroque. If you only experience one type of music, you can only go so far. You learn so much by doing other types of music.

OW: How do you approach a new song?

HC: I try very hard to let the music guide me. I don’t believe that expressivity and beauty, for example, are unrelated. If you allow the music to lead you, then the expressivity will automatically allow the full beauty to emerge. They are not in opposition to each other. An aria should be beautiful because of the expressivity one can bring to the voice and vice versa. They are intimately connected. I try to respond naturally to the music without focusing on a particular aspect. If you focus on trying to perfect the beauty of a piece, then you will have to sacrifice something else. I prefer to take a holistic approach, and I think this works for me.

OW: You have recorded a number of successful CDs. The album “Battle Cry” won two major awards. What was the theme of the music selected for the disc?

HC: It won the BBC Music Magazine’s Vocal Award and the Concept Award from Gramophone. It contains a series of stories about women who have been abandoned. The biggest piece being Monteverdi’s “Lament of Arianna” but also many other heroines, such as Dido. We also included four new songs by Owain Park, focused on the same theme, starting with Boudica and moving on to Philomela, the poet Sappho, and then in the fourth song we bridge the gap and jump to Marietta from Korngold’s “Die Tote Stadt,” with the text by Georgia Wray.

OW: What is the connection between the four new songs and the musical pieces from the baroque period?

HC: The four songs form a song cycle as the central piece on the CD, so the old music surrounds the new. There is a thematic connection between them in terms of the stories and the characters. They are designed to cross temporal bounds so that the stories are considered in a modern-day context. We were interested in exploring what it means to work with such an intimate ensemble.

OW: Do you see this as an antidote to historically informed performances, which some people view as belonging to a museum?

HC: I see baroque music as being very much alive, so maybe this is why I lean very much towards contemporary music that draws upon the baroque. It is wonderful to be informed about past practices and to imagine what the sound world was like, but we can only perform as the people we are at the moment we live in. Also, because I have found a sound world with which I have a strong connection, I want to shine in it. I feel it is very relevant and don’t feel that it takes us back in time just because of its connections with the baroque.

OW: You have recently released a CD called “If the Fates Allow.” What is the idea behind this recording?

HC: I have spent some time talking about how I enjoy crossing boundaries, but this CD doesn’t do that. All the songs are from the second half of the baroque period. It is also an album all about expression. Purcell’s songs are quite long, almost cantata like. There are bigger pieces of the repertory, like “The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation” and a few lesser-known songs. Lots of the songs are based on a ground bass with a repeating line over and over again, which allows me to improvise and create extraordinary melodies that are very beautiful and full of heart.

I am happy with the results, and the reviews have been very positive. It is a very gentle and introspective album, which works well for that sound world and this kind of music. We recorded it in 2023, but it was based on a concert we did in 2021, as we were coming out of lockdown, and I wonder if the choice of pieces was a result of what was a very introspective and inward-looking time. Obviously, it still works outside that context, but I am fascinated about the choices when I think about it now.

OW: Looking through your biography, it is noticeable you do not perform many operas. You already have an impressive discography and appear in many concerts. Would it be fair to say that you are less interested in performing in operas?

HC: I am young, and my career is still in its early days. I just sang in “Giulio Cesare” in the Liceu in Barcelona, and next year I will be working at Dutch National Opera in a new work called “Theory of Flames” by Michel van der Aa. So, it is not that I am not interested in performing opera, and I want to do a lot more of it in the future.

OW: You will be appearing at the Music at Paxton Festival in Scotland in July, which is dedicated to performing chamber music. What will you be performing?

HC: The festival is set in the 18th century mansion, Paxton House, and its grounds. The drawing room is an amazing space for chamber music. I will be there to do a recital with Sholto Kynoch on piano, and on the following day, the fabulous theorbo player, Toby Carr, and I will be doing a baroque recital in a nearby church.

OW: Looking forward to the future, how do you see your career progressing?

HC: I want to do as much wonderful music making as possible. How this will develop, I don’t really know because you don’t know what other people will be trying to do and what ideas they will have. So, I have to be flexible. I am always learning lots of new music, which I really enjoy.

Of course, I have specific ambitions, but I tend to keep them private. Although, I will say that, at the moment, I am spending a lot of time with Octavian and hoping that I will be able to sing the role before too long, but it is not yet planned.