The music press call Katherine Jenkins a classical music superstar - a term that, a couple of decades ago, they would have said was an oxymoron. She's performed in front of Pope John Paul II and Britain's Queen Elizabeth, and sung alongside the likes of Andrea Bocelli and Placido Domingo. Hongkongers will get a chance to judge for themselves when the mezzo-soprano performs in the city tomorrow.
Jenkins' life has been dominated by music since the age of four, when she gave her first public performance. At seven, she began to sing in her local church choir. 'I have sung all my life,' she says. 'It wasn't that anyone told me I had a good voice; it was because it made me so happy. I started to win competitions and eventually started to have singing lessons. The teacher recognised the lyrical quality to my voice and suggested classical music.'
The Welsh-born Jenkins went on to study the genre at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she graduated with honours in all the major opera languages - Italian, German, French and Russian. Soon afterwards, her musical career took a back seat when she entered and won the Face of Wales 2000 competition. She then took up modelling and soon found herself having to choose between two careers.
'I love fashion and gained valuable experience for all the photo shoots I have to do now,' she says. 'But I don't think modelling and singing sit very well together.' After just a few years, Jenkins left the career many would give their right arm for to pursue music. In 2004, she put together a demo for Universal Music and the company offered Jenkins a six-album deal worth more than US$1.5 million, at the time the most lucrative in Britain's classical recording history.
At just 27, Jenkins penned her autobiography. But she held back on discussing many issues, and is still tight-lipped about her private life. She refuses to answer any of the tough questions: criticism that her popularity is all about beauty over talent, her diva-like attitude, drug use as a student and her near-rape at the age of 19.
The book's release in 2008 coincided with another major headline for the singer: the shock revelation that Jenkins had left Universal to sign what was reportedly the biggest record deal in the history of classical music, a contract with Warner worth US$10 million.
