Pre-Wall Berlin........ Marguerite.

At some point in the '80s I was singing La Damnation de Faust at Der Deutsche Oper in West Berlin.

Marguerite is a beautiful, haunting, melancholy and solitary role. She is the only woman in the piece.

One day I was called into the corridor outside the rehearsal room to be measured for my cross. I had no idea what was to come.

I lay down on a full size 10 foot high cross, as the carpenter measured up my wrist and foot straps. This was revolved in the last scene on stage amid neon lights, thunderstorms and fireworks as I held on and tried to relax, thankfully having finished singing. The heavenly chorus followed and I cannot remember how I got out of it all.

At the end of the run I had a day in hand before leaving for London, with 120 kilos of luggage, after 10 months away. I had decided to stay for Teresa Berganza's recital, always a masterclass in how to do it.

It was a cold, wet, grey day and, having previously been invited to East Berlin for lunch at the Embassy and swept through the border control in diplomatic cars.........This time I thought I'd go on my feet as an ordinary person.

The contrast was strident.

I queued along with everyone else as our passports were removed and we all waited in the wind and rain with no progress.

We got chatting.....a journalist had his camera taken away and we tried to keep cheerful as no one told us what was happening, there was no tea or water and a couple of hours dragged by. It seemed more prudent not to ask questions.

However there was no way back, or forwards.

I finally decided that this was enough and went to the front of the queue saying that if we were kept in this weather I would get a cold and then would not be able TO WORK.

"Und was machen Sie?" "What do you do?".

"Ich bin Sangerin" I replied, trying to sound elegant and not bark back at Irma Bunt.

"Where do you sing?" "An Der Deutsche Oper - last night. And if I get a cold, kann ich NICHT ARBEITEN." "I cannot work."

Miraculously my passport was immediately returned and I was whisked via the chicane of barriers, with metal teeth hanging down to prevent even the fastest vehicle from zigzagging through, and was escorted ahead of everyone leaving all of my new friends behind. I felt a bit uncomfortable but so grateful, as my leather jacket hadn't kept the weather out.

Slipping into the total greyness and concrete of East Berlin, I wondered about the real value of being a performing artist within the Communist block.

The throat specialist whom I knew in the West, had given a most wonderful supper party for me after a performance, with lobsters and champagne served by men in white gloves. He also explained the mechanics of crucifixion, given the production that I was in, and I wondered how he had known.......and why he wore a wig.

I remembered my friends left behind at the border and the total. utter silence at Checkpoint Charlie....... save for the birdsong.