Felicity Lott – a personal remembrance

Felicity Lott has died at the age of 79. The British soprano was one of the first people I met when I arrived in London. A confused first kiss was sorted out when she told this lad from the provinces, more used to embarrassed single pecks, that two-cheek kissing was the norm… left-right. Thank you, Flott.

Flott is the name everyone knew her by, and it was included in her various email addresses over the years. On her little-used Facebook account, however, she used ‘Felicity Woolf’, Woolf being the name of her husband since 1984, the actor Gabriel.

As a Wigmore Hall page turner for her frequent pianist Graham Johnson, I saw her working up close – a class act, though she had a comic, rather buffo side, and was self-deprecating. Her musicality was flawless, as was her French – “She sings better than the French do,” an elderly French lady told me at the Wigmore. That can’t be true, I said. “Oh yes, with her you can hear all the words!” For Rossini‘s La regata veneziana, she mastered the Venetian dialect perfectly. She was a perfectionist.

She was older than Graham Johnson, whom she joined at the Royal Academy of Music when she was 22. When Johnson formed The Songmakers’ Almanac in 1976 with four singers, she was the soprano, and Irish singer Ann Murray, the mezzo. The two often sang together in recital, with Graham accompanying and devising the programmes.

When they sang together at La Scala in 2006, I was asked to take a bouquet of flowers to Flott after the official end of the programme. I’d rather have died, so my partner passed the flowers to her, with Ann looking on slightly hurt, and Graham watching with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. The tutting and other sounds of disapproval from the audience at this lack of manners were really quite loud. UK audiences would have known what was happening, however, because the gag had been seen on television during a Proms concert in 1996 – it all served to launch their hilarious rendition of Rossini’s Cat Duet, with the tall Dame Felicity lording it over the put-upon shorter Ann.

While walking back to her hotel after the recital, the unassuming Flott finally said what was bothering her: she’d heard boos. While this is hardly unknown behaviour at La Scala, here it certainly wasn’t the case – the three had had an unequivocal triumph. We explained that she’d heard loud calls of “BIS!” meaning “encore”. I don’t think she was convinced.

Felicity Lott in Poulenc’s La voix humane, 2019 – photo by Graham Spicer – 3

Felicity Lott in Poulenc’s La voix humane, 2019 – photo by Graham Spicer – 1

Felicity Lott in Poulenc’s La voix humane, 2019 – photo by Graham Spicer – 4

Her anti-diva comportment was also on show after a solo recital at La Scala when the table we’d booked at the restaurant wasn’t free, and for 20 minutes we were standing in a draughty angle near the entrance – I’ve seen singers have panic attacks in similar situations. She was serene and patient.

On this site, we feature Proust-style questionnaires with singers and dancers. In 2013, a month before her farewell recital at the Wigmore Hall (“It sold out very quickly with ‘Farewell’ written all over it!” she wrote), I asked if she would like to do a Gramilano Questionnaire. “I hate these things: they come back and bite you later, so I’m going to be a Proust pooper!” For a while, ‘Proust pooper’ became a frequently used phrase at home.

I last saw Flott, again with Graham, at the end of 2019, just a couple of months before the onset of events that would dramatically change performers’ lives. Although they were part of a prestigious festival, they were appearing in a small theatre in Como with a sort of school classroom to prepare in. Flott, however, was as neat and precise as though she were in the number one dressing room at Covent Garden. They gave a touching account of Poulenc’s La voix humane, and a programme of his melodies. At 72, she was bewitching, beautiful, refined – as indeed she was throughout her life.

Felicity Lott 8 May 1947 – 15 May 2026

Gramilano Editor

Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Italian ballerina Carla Fracci.

Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.

He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.