Death on the High C's

Robert Barnard - Death on the High C's

Opera singers are often described as being larger than life, and certainly this is true of Gaylene Ffrench. Her appetites - for men, for booze, for attention - are gargantuan, and her ability to irritate is similarly outsized. So when someone electrocutes the bombastic Australian contralto, few tears are shed at the Northern Opera Company (though it's a pity her understudy's so lousy).