Sarah Connolly

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other people with the same name, see Sarah Connolly (disambiguation).

Connolly after a recital at Clayton State University's Spivey Hall in 2017

Dame Sarah Patricia Connolly

Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to music.[3]

Life

Connolly was born in County Durham and educated at Queen Margaret's School, York, Clarendon College in Nottingham and then studied piano and singing at the Royal College of Music, of which she is now a Fellow. She then became a member of the BBC Singers for five years.[4][5]

Career

Connolly's interest in opera and a full-time career in classical music began after she left the BBC Singers. She began her opera career in the role of Annina (Der Rosenkavalier) in 1994.[6] Her breakthrough role was as Xerxes in the 1998 English National Opera production of Handel's Serse (Xerxes), directed by Nicholas Hytner.

In 2005, she sang the title role in Handel's

Olivier Award. Her 2005 debut at the Metropolitan Opera was in the same opera, but in the role of Annio.[8]

In 2009, she sang (in

Teatro alla Scala and made her debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Dido in the same opera.[9] In 2010, she made her role debut of "Der Komponist" in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Metropolitan Opera. She was awarded the 2011 Distinguished Musician Award from the Incorporated Society of Musicians.[10] For her recital at Alice Tully Hall in New York, Connolly received a rave review in The New York Times.[11]

She made her debut as

Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie (Paris Opéra at the Palais Garniér). Connolly reprised Phèdre for Glyndebourne Festival Opera in a production by Jonathan Kent 2013, conducted by William Christie.[13]

Connolly won the Silver Lyre 2012 from the

Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier with English National Opera.[15]

During the 2011

A Child of our Time later in the series. She is committed to promoting new music; her performances include Sir John Tavener's Tribute to Cavafy at the Symphony Hall, Birmingham and his film music to Children of Men.[citation needed
]

Connolly made the first commercial recording of Mark-Anthony Turnage's Twice Through the Heart with Marin Alsop and the London Philharmonic Orchestra having previously given the Belgian and Dutch premieres of the work with the Schoenberg Ensemble conducted by Oliver Knussen.[citation needed] She sang the role of Susie in the premiere production of Turnage's opera The Silver Tassie at English National Opera in 2000.[16][17]

Connolly's other commercial recordings include

lieder with Eugene Asti for Chandos, "Songs of Love and Loss",[18] Korngold lieder with Iain Burnside, the Duruflé Requiem for Signum and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment[19] for which she raised the funds and selected the cast for the recording.[4]

In September 2009, Connolly made her first appearance as a guest soloist at

The Last Night of the Proms, singing Rule, Britannia! while wearing a replica Royal Navy uniform of Lord Nelson.[20]

She was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree by Nottingham Trent University in 2017.[21]

In July 2019 she announced temporary leave to undergo breast cancer surgery withdrawing from upcoming performances in BBC Proms and Orpheus and Eurydice with English National Opera.[22][23]

In December 2023 it was announced that she would be the eighteenth recipient of the King's Medal for Music.[24]

Personal life

Connolly lives in Broadstairs.[4][5] [25][26]

Operatic roles

Royal Opera House

George Enescu
Henry Purcell
Richard Wagner

Welsh National Opera

Richard Strauss

Opera North

Gaetano Donizetti
Vincenzo Bellini

English National Opera

Vincenzo Bellini
Alban Berg
Hector Berlioz
Benjamin Britten
Marc-Antoine Charpentier
George Frideric Handel
Claudio Monteverdi
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Henry Purcell
Richard Strauss
Mark-Anthony Turnage

Scottish Opera

Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Opéra National de Paris

La Scala, Milan

Maggio Musicale, Florence

La Monnaie, Brussels

De Nederlandse Opera

Handel

Liceu, Barcelona

Monteverdi
Handel
Wagner

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence

Mozart
  • La Clemenza di Tito
     (Sesto)
Handel

Bavarian State Opera, Munich

Bayreuth Festival

Richard Wagner

Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

Richard Wagner

Vienna State Opera

George Frideric Handel

Roles in the United States

New York City Opera
Metropolitan Opera
San Francisco Opera
  • Semele
    (Ino and Juno)

Recordings

Recordings include:

References

  1. ^ Tomorrow's birthdays, The Guardian, 12 June 2010
  2. ^ "No. 59282". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2009. p. 7.
  3. ^ "No. 61962". The London Gazette (Supplement). 17 June 2017. p. B7.
  4. ^ a b c d Erica Jeal (10 October 2008). "Who wears the trousers?". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  5. ^ a b Neil Fisher (19 May 2009). "Sarah Connolly: The diva who wears the trousers". The Times. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  6. ^ Ivan Hewett (21 September 2004). "Diva who dies for a living". The Telegraph. Retrieved 23 May 2007.
  7. ^ Hugh Canning (6 February 2005). "Sarah Connolly – stardom beckons". The Times. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  8. ^ "Artists - Mezzo Soprano". Metropolitan Opera. Retrieved 9 May 2022.
  9. ^ Erica Jeal (2 April 2009). "Dido and Aeneas; Acis and Galatea (Royal Opera House, London)". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  10. ^ "ISM celebrates singer Sarah Connolly". ISM Music Journal. January–February 2012. Archived from the original on 4 October 2013.
  11. ^ Woolfe, Zachary (15 April 2011). "A Mezzo Keeps It Simple, and Makes It Profound". The New York Times.
  12. ^ "Sarah Connolly in Der Ring". 27 September 2012. Retrieved 9 December 2017.
  13. ^ "Glyndebourne - The Opera Archive. Hippolyte et Aricie, 01 August 2013". www.glyndebourne.com. Retrieved 9 May 2022.
  14. ^ "Connolly wins Silver Lyre 2012". 14 May 2013.
  15. ^ "Winners of the Opera Poll 2013 announced". WhatsOnStage.com. 24 February 2013.
  16. ^ Michael Billington (18 February 2000). "Triumph from the trenches". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  17. ^ Edward Greenfield (12 July 2002). "Turnage, The Silver Tassie". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  18. ^ Tim Ashley (14 November 2008). "Classical review: Schumann: Frauenliebe Frauenliebe und -leben; Liederkreis Op 39, etc; Connolly/Asti". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  19. ^ Tim Ashley (13 February 2009). "Purcell: Dido & Aeneas; Connolly/ Bardon/ Finley/ OAE/ Devine/ Kenny". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  20. ^ Richard Morrison (14 September 2009). "Proms 73–76: Last Night of the Proms at the Albert Hall/ BBC TV/ Radio 3". The Times. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  21. ^ Jon Pritchard (4 July 2017). "Sports stars and artists among those to be honoured by Nottingham Trent University". Nottingham Post. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  22. ^ Savage, Mark (18 July 2019). "Singer Dame Sarah Connolly pulls out of the Proms". BBC.
  23. ^ Sanderson, David (18 July 2019). "Opera star Dame Sarah Connolly pulls out of Proms after cancer diagnosis". The Times.
  24. ^ "Bracknell News". 20 December 2023. Retrieved 22 December 2023.
  25. ^ Connolly, Sarah (14 November 2018). "Why we stand to lose our leading place on the world stage". JDCMB. Retrieved 16 August 2019.
  26. ^ Jackson, Claire (13 February 2019). "Why travelling musicians are worried about a no-deal Brexit". The Big Issue.
  27. ^ "CD: Mahler – Das Lied von der Erde". LPO. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  28. ^ Tim Ashley (10 February 2006). "Sarah Connolly – The Exquisite Hour". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 May 2007.

External links

Biographies

Interviews and articles

Media

  • Rule, Britannia! on
    Proms
    2009, inside the Royal Albert Hall. BBC SO's David Robertson conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Chorus. Although "Rule, Britannia!" had long been a fixture of the last night, this was the first time Arne's original version had been performed there.]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sarah_Connolly&oldid=1217993766"