Nara, could you tell us how this all started for you? I have always been performing in theatre groups, choirs and that sort of thing. I had singing lessons since I was twelve and sang right through university where I did a degree in Music at The University of Surrey, specialising in performance. After university I bummed around for a while and went travelling. While I was in Australia, I couldn’t get a job so I started busking. I didn’t have any backing tracks and the only thing that seemed to work without them was classical stuff. So I started singing that and people seemed to like it! One of my old friends from the UK ran the events company Lost Vagueness, and I told her I had a wonderful operatic Cabaret show and would she like to hire me? It was a bit of a stretch of the truth, but she said yes and it all went from there. What came first, the music or the
FOR ME THE MUSIC CAME FIRST. ADDING THE CIRCUS ELEMENT TO THE ACT CAME FROM PETER. I THOUGHT HAVING FIRES AND CIRCUS WITH MUSIC WOULD MAKE IT MORE FUN.
How does your audience tend to react? It constantly surprises me how much people enjoy hearing opera live - for a very long time I worried before gigs that they would hate it. We’ve done gigs for lots of different kinds of audiences, from squat parties to festivals as well as Cabaret venues, and it has always gone down very well. This year, we even performed opera in Italy... I thought I might get lynched! However they loved it and
were even very complimentary about my Italian. What’s your proudest moment so far? I have been most proud of making a career out of my singing! So many people study music and don’t end up working. It’s wonderful to be able to say it’s my job! Oh, that and performing for Alice Cooper at his Britain’s Got Freaks event in The London Dungeon - he’s an idol of mine and he loved my singing saying I had a fantastic voice, and we appeared in Bizarre Magazine because of it.
I HAVE BEEN MOST PROUD OF MAKING A CAREER OUT OF MY SINGING! SO MANY PEOPLE STUDY AND DON’T END UP WORKING. IT’S WONDERFUL TO BE ABLE TO SAY IT’S MY JOB!
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NARA TAYL OR
performing? For me, the music came first. Adding the circus element to the act came from Peter. We had gone out a few years back, and I thought having fire and circus with music would make it more fun. I hadn’t realised that people actually like opera, and I thought it needed some stunts, so Peter and I made Riding the Valkyrie’s first act, Harmin’ Carmen. We’ve since created more acts using Peter’s weird and wonderful skills, such as whip cracking, sword swallowing, fire eating, glass walking and fire breathing. I mainly leave the dangerous stuff up to Peter, but the whip cracking act can be a bit dicey for me!