"They wanted someone who could scream, so I said I could do that." Her offer was gratefully accepted and for the next two years she abandoned her operatic scales and exercises and smoked two packets of cigarettes a day to give her voice a rougher, rock inflection. "Some guys in my class were forming a rock group and they were actually looking for a male singer," Emma recalls. Her desire to sing did not go away and was soon to re-emerge in a radically different form when she joined a heavy metal band. All great singers will tell you that the voice is a gift, and not being able to use that gift left Emma feeling hollow. “I still feel guilty about stopping,” she explains. She continues to pay tribute to her early teacher but has never seen her since. But to me singing is an affirmation of being alive." I understand why they wanted me to concentrate on my other studies. My mother was a secretary and she thought that would be a good job for me. "My father was a policeman and thought that maybe I should follow in his footsteps.
"They didn't think singing could ever be a proper job," Emma recalls. But she was also approaching an age when her parents were concerned about career prospects and her future. She found my voice and slowly started to bring it out."Įmma took lessons with her for two years and was convinced she had found her purpose in life. “Singing was still like playing with a toy to me. “I touched these great scores for the first time and read the Italian words which seemed to have a mystery and romance." She also told Emma that she was a soprano coloratura. She surrounded herself with candles and cats and her piano and I loved the whole atmosphere,” Emma remembers. "She was a little old lady, about 70, and in her day she had been a great singer. Unsure at first how to pursue her desire to sing, it was not until she was 14 that Emma met a teacher who could help realise her dreams. That was the music that touched my soul." That's when I fell in love with singing for the first time," she says. "I ran to my bedroom and tried to sing the tune immediately. Nevertheless, a life-long love affair was forged.
It was a moment of transcendence, although to her amused embarrassment, Emma admits this introduction to the world of opera and bel canto came via a television commercial.
But her musical passions were aroused at the age of eleven when she heard the Queen Of The Night from The Magic Flute. Born in Paris in 1974, Emma recalls as a young girl she was far too shy “even to make a noise let alone to sing” and her family were not particularly musical.