Cynthia Erivo: Legendary Voices at the Proms

(BBC2, 8pm)

This year’s Proms were just getting going.

And Prom No 4 was Cynthia Erivo’s ‘Legendary Voices’, in which the London-born Tony, Grammy and Emmy award-winning actor, singer, songwriter and producer paid tribute to the array of female voices who have inspired her.

Among them were Nina Simone, Shirley Bassey, Billie Holiday and Gladys Knight, each of whose music was reimagined by Erivo, backed by the BBC Concert Orchestra under the baton of conductor Edwin Outwater.

Here is the first chance to see the show on television, after it was aired in full on BBC Radio 3 and partially on BBC Radio 2.

“I wanted to pay homage to them,” she says. “Women who have influenced my sound, the music I’ve listened to, and the way I tell my story.”

This year’s Proms marked the first return to large-scale repertoire since 2019, with more than 3,000 musicians playing 84 concerts over eight weeks – and the welcome return of international orchestras.

However, it is not that Covid’s effects haven’t been felt this year. The opening night’s Prom was due to feature Freddie De Tommaso singing Verdi’s Requiem, however he had to pull out at the last minute when he contracted Covid.

Verdi’s Requiem was chosen for the opening concert because it would have been impossible to stage last year, explained Clive Myrie, host of the Proms’ coverage on BBC Two.

“The point about having a mass scale choral work as the first night’s performance is that it involves human voices. And not only one choir, the BBC Symphony choir, but two, the Crouch End Festival Chorus. It’s significant because voices and choral works have been particularly hit hard as a result of Covid because of course you couldn’t open your mouth and sing – and now you can.”

Now we’re closer to the Last Night of the Proms than we are the First and fortunately there have been very few other last-minute changes or cancellations throughout the world’s biggest classical music festival. This performance of Erivo’s was one highlight of many, and it’s being revisited here in a fresh context.

The schedule on BBC Two this evening is not devoted to Proms coverage, but rather to powerful and iconic female singers – just as Erivo’s Prom is.

After the almost two-hour concert, there’s a chance to see one of Erivo’s biggest influences performing, in Nina Simone: Live at Montreux 1976.

Barbra Streisand is the next focal point, in Becoming an Icon 1942-1984, which traces Streisand from her roots in working-class Brooklyn to superstardom with her Broadway, movie and music career.

Finally Killing Me Softly: The Roberta Flack Story comprises a documentary profile of the American singer, best known for her early 1970s hits such as The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, Where Is the Love and Killing Me Softly with His Song.