It’s never too late!’ laughs Brindley Sherratt, when I ask about his new recital disc, ‘Fear No More’, as he admits that he has come to the recital platform quite belatedly. He explains how he was first talked into the whole process by his colleagues. ‘Alice Coote, the mezzo, said to me you need to do a recital and sing some songs – just do it!

'Then the pianist Julius Drake came to the first night of the Ring at Covent Garden in 2018 and invited me to visit him so we could work on songs’. Sherratt then called baritone Roderick Williams about the idea – ‘I reserve the right to phone a friend’ – and he concurred. ‘I decided I wanted to do some in English, so I’ve made these choices, including Ireland, Finzi and Warlock, as I feel they suited a bass voice. I’d already sung Mussorgsky’s “Songs and Dances of Death” with orchestra, and I chose the Schubert songs for the bass clef’.

Brindley Sherratt recording his album 'Fear No More' with Julius Drake at the Henry Wood Hall in London | Photo: William Cotes-Gibson

Like many singers, Sherratt is not keen on listening to other performers before he has his own take on something, but here made an exception. ‘I was interested in what basses like Kurt Moll and Gottlob Frick did and how they did it, which was really useful. We tried lots of song and picked what we liked.’ He says it was the same preparing the long role of Gurnemanz in Wagner’s Parsifal. ‘I listened to Frick a lot, his humanity and the way he colours the text.’

I comment on the length of the role, which to me seems beyond endless (and I admit, not in a good way) and I get a great comeback from Sherratt – ‘Parsifal is a lot shorter when you’re in it; it flies by!’ Can it be dispiriting singing roles that audiences might tune out from? ‘I say to young basses that I assume people will be bored so I try to make roles as visceral as possible and make the text sing, colouring it even if you make some strange sounds, and pinging the text to the back of the hall’.

'I was raised in the Sally Army - it was the best free music education you could ever have'

Sherratt loves singing an expansive phrase, so Sarastro (Zauberflöte) is ideal and our old friend Gurnemanz ‘is a dream to sing, such long lines’, likewise Gremin, in Eugene Onegin. ‘I sing his aria in a very Italian way. And Claggart, in Billy Budd, I do the same, with lots of legato. If I start to bark my voice loses presence; for instance, Hermann in Tannhäuser is not for me as it’s the wrong kind of high, too declamatory.’

Wagner has come as a surprise, now making about two thirds of Sherratt’s diary. ‘I’m OK with that, it suits my voice and I like to be text-led and German is my best language.’ Pogner in Meistersinger was first, then Marke in Tristan. Ever up for advice, Sherratt says that bass Robert Lloyd told him ‘take your time – making them listen doesn’t mean singing louder’. He observes ‘Now I sing Ochs in Rosenkavalier lightly. You don’t have to tank it, it’s much more playful. I don’t have any problem with the low C and D, plus my low notes are better if I’ve stretched my vocal cords, so high also means lower.’

Sherratt is an interesting blend of cautious and adventurous. ‘Voice and energy management is difficult. I’ll have a sing at most things, what the hell! But I balance my roles sensibly and I’m a bit choosier now. If I’m not entirely sure I decline something. For instance, if I could sing Wotan with an orchestra somewhere where no-one knows me I’d be tempted. And Hans Sachs, I love him, he’s very me. But the end of Act III, hmmm.....’ Sadly, a recent Hagen in a concert Götterdämmerung had to be cancelled for some minor but necessary surgery, so Sherratt has an unusual sabbatical of about three months before getting back on the road.

Brindley Sherratt and Julius Drake recording at the Henry Wood Hall | Photo: William Cotes-Gibson

Sherratt is tall with an appropriately resonant speaking voice – I doubt he ever has problem getting served in a bar – and we laugh about people’s idea of opera singers being posh. ‘Dad was a truck driver and we lived on a council estate in Manchester. But I was raised in the Sally Army and it was the best free music education you could ever have. The whole family sang well. I went to a terrible school but I had an amazing music teacher – this woman walked in looking like Holly Golightly’ (he goes slightly misty-eyed) ‘and she was a terrifying ex-pianist who pushed me really hard.

'So I got into the Royal Academy as a trumpet player with singing as my second subject. I won an opera prize in my second year, a huge shock to everybody, and I was told to drop trumpet and change’. With two years’ funding he went to St George’s Chapel, Windsor, then on to the BBC Singers for thirteen years. Sherratt made his opera debut aged thirty seven as Publio in La Clemenza di Tito at Covent Garden, in a formidable cast. ‘After a week, someone asked if I was OK.’ No. ‘Well, you fooled them and fooled me. So, shut up!’

‘It’s weird. I’m doing recitals and a recording of songs at the same time I’m doing more Wagner than anything else. I really want to keep my tone “singing”, to perform melodies lightly and lyrically with different colours.’ And on top of his opera life, Sherratt adds his considerable voice to fundraising. His daughter Amy, who has complex epilepsy, lives in The Meath, a home in Surrey enabling as much independence as possible. Last year Sherratt organised a charity concert which raised £300K for them, with another one planned for this year. Does Amy come to his performances? ‘Yes, she loves Zauberflöte but she’s not so keen on the Wagner’. Next season includes Luisa Miller in Hamburg, Semele in Paris. Billy Budd in Vienna and Rosenkavalier in Munich. And more of Gurnemanz next year at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl with Jonas Kauffmann, (sorry, Amy), so watch this space.

'Fear No More' is out now on Delphian Records www.delphianrecords.com | www.brindleysherratt.com