To not be able to stand Katharine Jenkins' voice?

[shadowfax07]

Especially in her upper register? I can't understand what words she's supposed to be singing. It gives me the rage, I was always taught in singing lessons and county choir to enunciate clearly. No point in singing if no-one can understand you!

Her lower register's fine, BTW, even if what she does with her lips is just tortuous to watch.

[Flangeshrub]

I know several people who know her very well and she is NOT a nice person. In fact she is allegedly vile.

[squoosh]

I think her audience is probably a late middle aged person who drives a Rover, reads the Sunday Express and has very strong views on Camilla v Diana.

[Nancy66]

It's opera for people who don't know anything about opera. Bit like that bloke who won Britain's Got Talent.

She has a nice voice but the big time opera singers knock seven shades of shit out of her as the earlier link shows.

[manchestermummy]

I can't stand her either.

She's not a singer. She sings. There's a difference.

And as much as a I like her songs, Adele's terrible too. The word is "Skyfall", not "Skyfoal". Sam Smith too: absolutely dreadful. And yet people will not stop going on about "how amazing" they are. They really, really are not.

I took my DH to his first opera a couple of years ago and he said he "had no idea people could sing like that" and thankfully is now too in the KJ can't sing camp.

[funnyossity]

Also Welsh-speakers like her ime, I prefer to listen to her in Welsh myself.

[Celticlass2]

She's bloody awful, bland doesn't even cover it. She's a goddess here in Wales though,- rolled out at every opportunity. Embarrising

[Beangarda]

Yes, Funny - not a Welsh speaker, but have heard a couple of her Welsh songs, and it sounds as if those songs stop her putting on the affected, plummy, kind of muffled pronunciation she seems to affect when singing classical music.

[Lottapianos]

Very interesting to hear people on here who sound like they really know what they're talking about saying that she's a rubbish singer technically. I don't know much about singing but I find her voice very unpleasant.

manchestermummy, are we the only two people in the world who can't stand Sam Smith's voice? He might be technically very good but he's so bloody whiny, and he over-sings everything. Can't bear him.

Quite liked Adele (really enjoyed her first album) but cant' get over the screaming and caterwauling in The Stalker Song Someone Like You

[paperlace]

Nobodyleavedhere

Tell us more immediately! I have heard tale she's quite lordy..?

[CalamityKate1]

Adele, Sam Smith etc.....there seem to be a lot of singers around who slur and mumble. It annoys me.

[Moonface1]

Agree most definitely. I wouldn't rate Katharine Jenkins as an opera singer at all. Also mystified by her popularity.

Also dislike Russell Watson. And at what point did her become an opera singer

I never thought Charlotte Church was exceptional. And it all went downhill speedily I think

[Beangarda]

But I think there are lots of pop/rock/jazz/folk singers around who don't have or need conventionally 'good' voices in terms of vocal technique, because the goalposts are different outside of classical singing, or we just value different things in different kinds of singing.

It's why opera singers often sound fussy, over-emphatic and 'wrong' singing folk songs or Christmas carols (and why that programme from a few years back called something like Popstar to Opera Star was like a car crash, watching someone who used to be in some girl group and was probably a perfectly decent pop singer wavering through a difficult aria like 'Casta Diva' with a couple of days' training.)

On the other hand, a lot of opera singers, trained to be able to sing unmiked over a full orchestra and still be heard in the cheap seats, sound very odd when singing in more intimate situations. I've sat in on opera rehearsals, and the thing that astonished me at first was just the volume of sound a Wagnerian soprano makes! And how accurately an opera singer needs to sing in something that might be a fourth or fifth language, increasingly nowadays while acting believably or doing something like hanging upside down from a trapeze...

[Kundry]

I don't think Katherine Jenkins makes her money from selling records though. I suspect she makes it from paid appearances (all those bloody rugby finals), photo shoots, stories in Hello and being papped for the DM sidebar of shame.

Her singing probably only accounts for a small part of her income, she's just an average celeb.

Beangarda you are so right about opera singers sounding wrong doing popular songs. A few can do it and sound amazing (Jose Calleja can do it fabulously) but most just sound bonkers - Joyce DiDonato at the Proms was awful.

[Celticlass2]

I think Sam Smith has a big voice and a big talent. I saw him not so long ago. Only went along as a last minute thing and was blown away.
Adele however, I have never got . The most overated singer ever. I hope she takes an early retirement..

[Minus2seventy3]

Awful lot of bitchiness on here. And to call someone a "thoroughly unpleasant human being" while hiding behind Internet anonymity? That's rather unpleasant too.

[Beangarda]

I don't think there's much bitchiness at all. Most of us are talking in an informed way about why KJ is a poor singer of classical music, which has nothing to do with what she's like as a human being.

I I do think the slurs on her personality on the thread aren't particularly nice, but I'm not the Be Nice police. I personally don't know anything about her other than her under-par performances, and don't give two hoots whether she's nice or unpleasant. Either way, it doesn't change her poor breath control and hammy delivery.

[squoosh]

I don't see an 'awful lot of bitchiness'? I see a lot of people accurately critiquing her singing.

[apotatoprintinapeartree]

OP

Your post asking about why she doesn't applaud her musicians, you don't know the half of it.

Months after her relationship finished she left a full orchestra waiting on a stage for a full hour because she was too upset to rehearse, I know this as when they finally did start my friend had such trouble finding somebody to collect her children from school. They would have been finished i time had she not been such a prima donna, and imo very unprofessional.

She insists they wear silly santa hats too, but you don't see her in one.
Unfortunately, she isn't big enough for people to put up with her little tantrums and prima donna behaviour, Maria Callas she isn't.

[Minus2seventy3]

"World class simperer..." - yup, that's a valid critique of someone's singing ability. Not bitchy at all.

[squoosh]

In my opinion she is a world class simperer, she reeks of insincerity. I don't see that as bitchy, I see that as a valid opinion.

[kilmuir]

My DN was a dancer in a show she was in. Rude and stuck up. Never smiled or acknowledged others

[Quangle]

I don't know anything about opera but she sang at a carol concert I went to recently and it was lovely. Perhaps she should stick to that rather than trying to be operatic? Although I confess I don't really like the operatic style so I don't mark her down for not achieving the full Maria Callas effect iyswim.

Can't abide Adele though. Skyfow was awfow.

[DandyHighwayman]

ROAR at Skyfow was awfow

[Chippednailvarnish]

It crubowled!!

[JudgeyHotPants]

She's always presented this holier than thou, goody goody image, despite being caught on camera snorting coke and boasting that she was "fucked".

Vile woman.