In conversation with Alastair Laurence.
Dame Sarah Connolly is a brilliant and celebrated Mezzo Soprano. Her recent highlights in opera have included Fricka (Covent Garden, Teatro Réal & Bayreuther Festspiele) Brangäne Tristan und Isolde (Covent Garden, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Glyndebourne Festival & Gran Teatro del Liceu); Komponist Ariadne auf Naxos and Clairon Capriccio (Metropolitan Opera); the title role in Giulio Cesare and Gertrude in the world premiere of Brett Dean’s Hamlet (Metropolitan Opera & Glyndebourne Festival); the title role in Ariodante (Wiener Staatsoper, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence & Dutch National Opera); Sesto La clemenza di Tito (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence); Purcell’s Dido (Teatro alla Scala & Covent Garden); Jocaste in Enescu’s OEdipe (Covent Garden); Gluck’s Orfeo and the title role in The Rape of Lucretia (Bayerische Staatsoper); Phèdre Hippolyte et Aricie (Opéra national de Paris & Glyndebourne Festival) and the title role in Agrippina and Nerone L’Incoronazione di Poppea (Gran Teatro del Liceu).
Dame Sarah has also appeared in recital in London, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Geneva, Madrid, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, San Francisco, Atlanta, Stuttgart; at the Incontri in Terra di Siena La Foce and the Schubertiada Vilabertran and at the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Edinburgh and Oxford Lieder Festivals. In the 2018/19 season she curated a Residency at Wigmore Hall.
Alastair Laurence, who is curating this series, is a freelance documentary film maker who lives near Abergavenny. In recent years Alastair has made films about The Battle of the Somme, a history of British Photography and the poets John Betjeman, Philip Larkin and TS Eliot.