Is it fair to say that singers are always at their best when they are articulating their native tongue? Actors certainly are: there’s a very special pleasure from hearing the warm-voiced likes of Judi Dench or Adrian Lester speak the speech of Shakespeare - a pleasure which wouldn’t be the same if they were performing in French or German.
Singers, I surmise, relax when they don’t have to think about enunciating awkward foreign diphthongs or fricatives: because they are insiders, as it were, they can rely on instinct and concentrate instead on meaning and colour.
But that doesn’t mean it’s a doddle, as a curious and endearing organisation called The Association of English Singers and Speakers understands. For the last hundred years it has been dedicated to fostering the delicate art of making our language sound clear and beautiful, primarily though master classes and competitions.
