Just a few months ago Lesley Garrett sang the national anthem at the new Wembley stadium on a day which saw Portsmouth lift the FA Cup.

She's happy to claim credit for Pompey's victory that day, she laughs. But more seriously, it was a day which summed up Lesley's whole approach to music.

As she shows through every last aspect of her rich and varied career, she consistently takes the view that music is for absolutely everyone.

The classical voice has had its share of obstacles and barriers thrown up around it over the centuries - but Lesley for one is a performer who knows no boundaries.

The classical voice is there every bit as much for the football supporter as it is for those in their seats at the Royal Opera House.

"I have always felt that music should be heard by everyone," says Lesley, who will be one of the stars at Arundel Castle in this year's Arundel Festival concerts.

Television and film and advertising have helped reclaim classical music for the mainstream, and Classic FM, for which Lesley does a popular show, has also helped broaden the appeal.

But English National Opera with its emphasis on singing in English is also doing its bit, returning opera to the masses for whom it was created.

Opera's own development down the centuries hasn't helped it, though, Lesley says. Opera spawned the lighter operetta which in turn spawned the musicals, creating ever-greater competition.

And as Lesley says, audiences are finite, with so much on offer these days and so much for us all to choose from.

But Lesley's response is that the performers simply have to work harder and be doubly sure they are offering quality. They also have to diversify, much as Lesley has done.

As a recording artist, she has 12 solo CDs to her credit; as a performer she has worked with a remarkable range of people from Ladysmith Black Mambazo to Marti Pellow and from Michel Legrand to Elaine Paige.

Her TV appearances have included the documentary Jobs For The Girls with Linda Robson and Pauline Quirke, Viva La Diva and The Lily Savage Show.

Add to that her stage work, and you can see what Lesley means when she says she is 'a singular example of what is going on in a global sense with the music industry'.
But as she says, diversity suits her anyway. She's always sung a huge variety of things - and her Arundel concert will be typical in that respect, a first half which is classical followed by a second half which isn't remotely.
Her Arundel concert will also be precisely the kind of performance dearest to her heart - open-air.
"I have always particularly enjoyed outdoor concerts. They are the ones where you really feel that the audience is participating, relaxing and so free and happy."
And so what if it rains, says Lesley, fresh from an experience where it did precisely that: "It was like being in a shell on the stage. It was like Master And Commander going round Cape Horn all around. You saw all these people there being wonderfully creative with bits of plastic to protect themselves from the rain."
And yet still they came, the Dunkirk spirit in evidence, everyone determined to have a great time, come what may.
Lesley certainly did. Whatever her other commitments (and there are plenty), live performance is the backbone to her year: "That's when you really get to communicate with your audience. You don't get that with radio and TV, and the lovely thing is that it is a two-way process.
"I give everything to my audience - and I get so much back. That's the cyclical nature of it. Live performance is the last thing that I would ever give up."
There is something wonderful about seeing the audience, the children having fun, the flags being waved, the wine being sipped, the grandparents relaxing in their deckchairs, the picnics being broken open.
It's a huge sense of community - and that's precisely what Lesley loves, the great togetherness of live music, something nothing else can equal.
And her hope is it will inspire people to take the next step into the opera world.
"I sang all these wonderful arias at home around the piano when I was growing up."
But it wasn't until she was 14 or 15 that her aunt took her to London to see an opera. Madame Butterfly. And it was a life-changing event.
She saw the passion, she saw the pain; the arias finally had a context; and she realised what all this wonderful music really was about.
"You realise that the greatest thing about opera is the drama. The music serves the drama."
And young Lesley was hooked: "That was the moment when I thought 'I have to do this!"


Passion of the classics

A stately home setting will give added atmosphere to an opera classic

Artistic director David Norman shudders a little at some of the things opera has to suffer in the name of the great god accessibility.
It's the goal which drives those up-dated versions of the classics, played in modern dress and sung in English with a few shocks thrown in.
You'll get none of that when Candlelight Opera perform at Arundel Castle as part of this year's Arundel Festival.
Their Cosi Fan Tutte will be sung in the original language in a production which reflects David's belief that you need to capture the glamour and the passion of the classics.
That's the best way to make them accessible, particularly if you then perform them in suitably historic, glamorous locations – such as Arundel Castle (Wednesday, August 27).
Candlelight Opera are specialists in taking opera into the country's magnificent historic venues – places the company bring to life with a combination of fine music and beautiful period costumes recreating the period setting which was originally intended.
David set up the company in 1995: "It was really to give a platform for young singers, mainly home-grown talent, singers who are either trying to get into music colleges or have just graduated and are wanting to start their professional careers.
"And we decided that we would do our productions in the original languages. It's what young singers need if they are going to break into the great opera houses of Europe. A lot of these operas were written for the Italian language, and a lot of them are quite simply better that way."
The benefit for the audiences is that the stately home settings bring the audiences into the closest proximity to the performers.
"Every expression can be seen. It's a great way of learning to put across the emotions, and the audience gets the thrill of being so close.
"When they did the big performances at Earls Court, I saw Aida, and I was watching through binoculars. It was fantastic for the triumphal march, but for the more intimate scenes it just did not work."
And those are the scenes that David particularly wants to flourish – as they do, given the Candlelight Opera treatment.
"You just don't need to have up-dated modern scripts with a bit of shock value for shock value sake. If you put it close to people and if the performers believe in what they are doing, and if you don't put it across with self-indulgent performers practising their art without consideration for the people who are watching, then you can get what opera is all about."

The place to be

- The Arundel Festival Castle concerts kick off tomorrow, Friday, August 22, with rock folk band The Levellers, originally from Brighton and celebrating 20 years in the business. Also on the bill for Friday is Seth Lakeman (pictured above). Saturday, August 23, brings The Music of Queen – A Rock and Symphonic Spectacular, featuring the 60-piece English National Orchestra. And on Sunday, August 24, Lesley Garrett entertains with a programme of classical favourites and more recent songs.

- Other attractions include Arundel Castle Opera 2008, August 27, presented by Candlelight Opera; Arundel Castle Shakespeare on August 28 and 29 - A Midsummer Night's Dream in The Collector Earl's Garden, presented by The British Shakespeare Company. Tickets on 01603 660444.