Mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly is singing at Cheltenham Music Festival, this year celebrating its 80th anniversary. Katie Jarvis caught up with her – and the world of opera – to talk about… pretty much everything
I’m picturing it in my imagination: this year’s Cheltenham Music Festival (a full 80 years since musicians tuned up their instruments for three inaugural concerts in Pittville Pump Room; a mere five weeks after the end of the war in Europe, to boot. Think on the logistics of that…)
But here, now, on a Saturday in July 2025, Dame Sarah Connolly, mezzo-soprano, is about to sing. We’re (still in my imagination: as I write, the concert is weeks away) in Gloucester Cathedral, where the acoustics skilfully waft sounds out, up and round like prayers swirling. Berlioz’s Te Deum is on tonight’s programme: a work as monumental as the extraordinary building that will host its powerful grandeur.
I’m picturing Dame Sarah — with all her warmth and passion — looking out over the space as she sings. She might not live in Gloucestershire now, but it was — for so long — her adopted home. ‘Every part of the place is in my heart, including Gloucester, Gloucester Cathedral and Cheltenham,’ she tells me, when we speak. It’s the county where her daughter grew up and went to school, of course.
And there’s also a part of Sarah Connolly here, in this very cathedral. In the eight-light window, designed by artist Tom Denny; a window that celebrates composer and poet Ivor Gurney. A window that invites the surrounding countryside into this vaulted space: the fir trees of steep Brimscombe Valley that Gurney walked, dark into the night; shimmering puddles along a lane watched over by May Hill; leafless willows along the Severn. (Cave. The horrors of war appear in its panels, too.)
Sarah campaigned and sang for this very window; appeared at the service when it was dedicated back in 2014.
In July, at Cheltenham Music Festival, Berlioz, Brahms and Fauré are on Dame Sarah’s programme.
But I bet she warmly glances over at the window — part hers; part ours — too.
Sarah Connolly. Photo: Christopher Pledger ‘It’s ages!’ I say to Sarah Connolly. And it is! The last time we spoke was even before her Damehood in the 2017 birthday honours.) ‘I’ve looked it up,’ I say: ‘2012; and, prior to that, 2007.’
She laughs. ‘A few more years left in me yet.’
Things have changed — and how.
For one thing, Lily, her daughter, is no longer the three-year-old singing along to The Full Monty; to the theme from Flashdance: What a feeling… I can’t have it all, now I’m dancin’ for my life.’
Lily: currently working to fund a master’s.
‘She’s done brilliantly in her education! She got a first in theatre studies and drama at university.’
Wants to become an actor or a voice actor. Knows it’s not going to be a walk in the park.
‘I’m very proud of her indeed. I think she’s a tremendous spirit; she’s really learning about toughness and she’s learning about what she can handle.’
It’s not just Sarah’s own world that’s changed over the course of those years. It’s the whole world. And that includes opera…
‘Now we have specialist intimacy co-ordinators: the first question they ask is, ‘Are you comfortable with this person putting their hand here?’ Could be wherever: on your face, your neck, your arm, your hip, or somewhere more intimate.’
Which never happened before?
‘No… no.
‘I always did. I always did [in every role; but she’s famed, too, for taking male ‘trouser’ roles]. I would always say, ‘Are you OK with me kissing you?’ It’s not a given in my book.’
Nor are we just talking about touching; this is about rudeness, also. The whole ‘A Chorus Line’ culture.
Yes — opera has been busy adding to its reserves of kindness and respect.
Maybe not so much theatre…
‘And it hasn’t yet translated on to the concert platform. That kerfuffle last year with John Eliot Gardiner and the student, where there were punches thrown… Older people should know better, in my view. If somebody young is behaving like an idiot… [she’s careful to say she’s talking generally, not specifically about this incident] there are ways of dealing with it; punching isn’t one of them.’
So a tick for opera. Again — not so much the concert or classical world.
‘There are some really terrifying conductors — a lot of them Italian — out there, who think they can behave with impunity towards other people. I mean, really, really awful stuff. And probably a lot of casting-couch stuff going on as well. Certainly was when I was at La Scala. And it was very unpleasant indeed.’
Surely, I ask (maybe sexist myself?), it’s better now more women are rightfully claiming roles previously a male preserve?
‘You mean conductors and directors? Yes, absolutely. That’s not to say women can’t also be rude. I’d say 99 percent of women are not rude to each other; where I’d say 50 percent of men can be rude…
‘Then you get the delightful, lovely people who don’t even know what rude means — like Simon Rattle. Ha! The nicest man on the planet. And Ed Gardner — adorable. Martyn Brabbins — adorable. Adrian Partington — adorable.
‘I’m not saying they’re not capable of feeling frustration but they don’t take it out on other people in a snide and nasty way and make them feel poorer because of it. So there are some really wonderful people out there.’
She’s walked out of rehearsals herself three times now, and once was because of the behaviour of a woman.
‘I walked out because I didn’t want to be on record saying something I couldn’t take back.’
I’m watching, once again, YouTube videos of Dame Sarah performing; teaching master classes to young artists. Even over a screen, what strikes me is her almost visceral immersion in a role; the power of the music, yes, that sucks you — the listener — inexorably in. But the way she becomes that character. The way she seems not only to feel every depth of emotion to the core; but (it occurs to me, as I watch) as if I could ask the character’s favourite colour, and Sarah Connolly would know.
‘Glorious’, ‘convincing’, ‘outstanding’, ‘superb’, the experts agree.
How does she do that?
‘One that stands out is Britten’s Lucretia [The Rape of Lucretia, written for Kathleen Ferrier: the story of an abused Roman noblewoman]. Apparently, I was quite difficult to live with during that period. Because I was trying to explore a very dark…’
She corrects herself…
‘It’s too broad a brushstroke, that. I was trying to explore somebody who is in a complete nervous state the whole time, and what might that feel like…’
Lucretia, cloistered in a house frozen into paralysis; waiting for the return of a husband who never arrives.
And then the story of a million #MeToos plays out on stage, as she’s raped by the powerful Tarquinius.
‘And he says, ‘I know you like me because I’ve seen the way you look at me.’
‘And she’s like, ‘O my god — I didn’t mean for that to be anything…’
(‘We can all empathise with that.)
‘So I had to try to understand how to make that physically real so that I didn’t have to act it. Because, if you start acting these things on stage, they look fake.’
When in Twice Through the Heart by Mark-Anthony Turnage — based on the true story of Amelia Rossiter, who killed her husband after years of abuse — Sarah spoke to psychiatrists to understand more about rape in the household.
‘Again, I didn’t want to ‘act’ anything on stage. As Nick Hytner says: Stop acting and just be.’
That must be intense?
‘There were times when my daughter was younger when I’d be sitting in a chair, thinking about this kind of thing; and she’d say she’d want my attention — this didn’t happen very often — and when she’d call my name, I’d be so far away in my thoughts and imaginings that I just blocked everything out.
‘It’s the same now, when I’m going through words in my head. People can shout my name right next to me and I’ve no idea what they’re saying or who they’re speaking to.’
In master classes, she tries to pass that intensity on to young students.
‘If you’re singing about a rose, what kind of rose? Where have you seen this rose? Have you actually seen a rose like that? What does it smell like? Is it a new rose? Is it a dying rose?’
How fascinating and true. If you were to ask me about somebody I knew, I probably wouldn’t tell you the biggest thing about them. It’s those little things, above all, that create the essence of a person.
It’s because I want to tell you about all the things we spoke of; yet the detail of them, too; because it’s fascinating to hear.
About how she’s noticed that theatre bringing in more music: ‘I don’t mean bands or drumming; I mean music appropriate to the period of the setting’.
About the failure of successive governments to invest in the arts — or even to be seen enjoying them. ‘They’re not attending the Proms; they’re not going to concerts of young choirs. Lisa Nandy, for example, the arts minister [at least as we speak], seems more focused on sports and digital.’
And about how Sarah’s study of character and acting means she can suss out a lie within seconds. (I love this.)
‘In my view — and I don’t mind saying it; I’m very anti-Brexit — I could see Michael Gove and the ‘sunlit uplands’ was a massive stonking lie, at the time. He was a terrible liar but he appealed to certain people who wanted to hear certain things, which weren’t true.’
One of her actor friends is employed to watch board meetings through a video camera to ascertain if anybody is dissembling.
(Not that I’m being anything other than open… But I’m momentarily relieved that I’ve failed to get my own camera to work for this particular Zoom.)
Talking of politics, Sarah Connolly has played pretty some autocratic leaders. Does that give her insight into some of today’s more brutal figures?
‘I played Julius Caesar around the [first] Trump time…’
Caesar, she liked. ‘I read everything there was to read about him… I felt a lot of respect for him. He was brave, he was fearless; he was probably far too arrogant, but he must have had a certain charm about him. And I love Mary Beard’s assessment of him; she also has a great affection for the old rogue.’
Sarah invited Mary along to a performance: ‘There’s a picture of me putting my laurel leaf on her head at the end, which she found very amusing.
‘She particularly loved the humour in David McVicar’s production, which wasn’t disrespectful towards Cleopatra either. She wasn’t a bimbo…
‘[And Mary said that] I caught the character of somebody who could kill if he was displeased, but not just a random psycho like some of the other Roman emperors.’
Could she ever play Trump, were he to be opera-ised?
‘I once heard an actor — it might have been Ralph Fiennes — saying you have to like something about a character you’re playing. So whoever does play Trump — it won’t be me — will have to find that one thing they like about him.’
Godspeed.
‘I gather he is nice to Barron but possibly because his father wasn’t nice to him… So whoever is going to play Trump has to find that sweet spot as well, otherwise it’s not balanced.’
So let’s briefly return to the window we started with.
‘I made a recording of musicians who had all attended the Royal College of Music… a CD which I hope the shop will have when I come up. [Said with a smile; but, shop, do take note…] Herbert Howells, Ivor Gurney included; all the composers who studied under Herbert Brewer, professor at the King’s School, Gloucester.
She loves that the positioning of Gerald Finzi’s window — also by Tom Denny — makes it almost look to be propping up Ivor Gurney’s.
‘Supporting him, because that’s what he did in life. He rescued Ivor Gurney’s music from his brother, Ronald, who wanted to throw it all on the fire in a jealous fit.’
When the window was dedicated, she was sitting next to Ian Venables: ‘Who has also been a great supporter of Ivor Gurney’s music, to put it mildly; he’s a biographer as well. He shed a tear during that service. I heard him struggling to retain his composure; it was very moving.
‘For me, just to have had a small part in making that [window] happen is a private joy… one of my finest life accomplishments.’
• Berlioz: Te Deum, with Dame Sarah Connolly, Saturday, July 5, 7.30pm, at Gloucester Cathedral: cheltenhamfestivals.org/music
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