CWPWRDD DILLAD: Click here to see bigger pictures
Mary Lloyd Davies is an opera singer from Llanuwchllyn. "I sang from a very early age, I was a member of the village’s children’s choir when I was three years old, where my mother was the leader. Singing has been a part of my life since the very beginning to tell you the truth. I’ve been lucky enough to share a stage with famous people like Carreras and Jon Vickers, Shirley Verrett and people like that, it was an eye-opener and wonderful to be part of something like that."
I’d always liked dressing up, and wearing shoes and hats and putting handbags on my arm when I was very little. We lived in a shop with lots of different clothes and things and I could dress up, so one could be in a world of one’s own too.
Which is your oldest dress?
Well this blue one is the eldest. This was the first dress I ever bought. Blue was my favourite colour then, when I was young. I used to wear a lot of blue, but as you can see, I’ve managed to move away from it in the last few years...
It’s lovely...and then there’s this bright pink number, this is lovely.
It’s made of pure silk and my sister made it for me. She was very good with her hands, and I’d been invited to sing at the Albert Hall. I went to buy the material from John Lewis in Oxford Street, bought a pattern and my sister made her up for me. The whole dress only cost twenty four pounds, and I think this detail on it cost about half that!
Do you have a favourite?
This is my favourite dress, I bought this one in Houston, at Saks Fifth Avenue, I just liked the colour very much, I tend to keep this one for important things, probably because I’m scared in case something happens to it!
I’m very fond, always have been, of glittery things which stand out because I think, from the audience’s point of view, that they draw your eye to the person on the stage. I’ve been fortunate enough to be allowed to wear those kind of clothes in the operas – nice clothes.
This one’s very heavy...
Yes, these sequinned ones are very heavy to carry. I bought this one in America too. It’s always useful to have a black dress for a mass or something like that – singing in a church. Black is always nice for something that’s a bit more serious.
I got this one in London, from Harrods, for the Eisteddfod when it was in Bala in 1997 because I was singing in the concert. There’s something quite Egyptian about it. It’s quite slimming, which is nice, and gets narrower at the bottom.
I’m sure it’s important to be totally comfortable when you’re on stage...
Oh yes, because you want to use all the muscles and you don’t really want everyone to see that.
Do you enjoy that whole process of putting you dress and your make-up on, doing your hair and so on?
Yes, I think its all part of it. Somewhere in the middle of all that your mindset starts to change, you start to think right, a performance is going to come out of all this. Your attitude naturally starts to change, you look in the mirror and make sure everything’s okay, because it�s important. From that, you head for the stage and I’m sure it’s part of it, that picture in your mind, and the reflection in the mirror, that’s what the audience is going to get when you stand in front of them. So it’s a transition, so to speak.
If you know that the audience have enjoyed themselves, and that they show that at the end, it gives you as a person a real lift. You think you’ve achieved something by giving pleasure to other people.
- CWPWRDD DILLAD