‘I’ve had my run-ins. That comes with the opera territory’
As Glyndebourne opens, mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly discusses the opera world’s new over-sensitivity with Rupert Christiansen
Even though the likes of Luciano Pavarotti, Birgit Nilsson and Montserrat Caballé made debuts there as rookies, the Glyndebourne Festival, in Sussex, has never pursued operatic superstars with outsize egos and price tags: instead it has always preferred to nurture its own homegrown crop of serious artists, who appreciate the opportunity provided by intensive rehearsal and long runs in idyllic working conditions to hone something out of the ordinary.
One such is the wonderful Sarah Connolly, that peerlessly elegant and intelligent mezzo-soprano who has sung here at regular intervals for more than 25 years – making her debut in 1992 as a nervous 28-year-old, who auditioned for the chorus stricken with laryngitis and “only just made it through the door”.
Nowadays – if she was the sort of person who required such vulgar homage – the red carpet would be rolled out: as a newly ennobled Dame of the British Empire, garlanded with awards and a front-ranking international reputation, she returns for a revival of a production that she considers a turning point in her career – David Mcvicar’s witty 2005 staging of Handel’s Giulio Cesare, in which she again plays the titular Roman generalissimo dazzled by the charms of the devious Cleopatra. “I feel it’s something that put me on the map, internationally,” she says. “And I think it also opened Handel opera up to a new public. It’s great to be back with it.”
As a 1992 veteran, she can remember the old Glyndebourne theatre’s village hall character. Today, despite changes entirely for the better in physical accommodation, she insists the ethos has remained the same. “It’s not a holiday camp, as some people seem to think. Everyone works extremely hard, especially the chorus. And there’s a spirit of perfectionism at all levels – sets and costumes, make-up, lighting as well as the music – that makes everyone strive to give of their best.”
Yet even if Glyndebourne doesn’t change, the mood throughout the business backstage has. In the light of the welter of revelations about sexual harassment in all departments of the arts, opera’s rehearsal rooms have become a rather edgy arena where everyone is on their guard. “It’s ridiculous,” Connolly huffs. ‘So someone swears and someone else doesn’t like it and they get reported to HR? Aren’t creative spaces meant to be places where you are free to express yourself?”
One particular scandal has proved a flashpoint: in February, the 84-yearold director John Copley was summarily sacked from New York’s Metropolitan Opera when a complaint was lodged after he made a mildly suggestive camp remark to a male chorus member whose English was less than perfect.
“I was very upset about it,” says Connolly. “John is from a different era, and perhaps his sense of humour is a bit Are You Being Served? But he hasn’t got a bad bone in his body, and the whole episode strikes me as a tragic misunderstanding.”
The one person whose intervention could have resolved it “with a bit of sensible face-to-face diplomacy”, she thinks, was Robert Rattray, the distinguished British artists’ agent who served as assistant to the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager Peter Gelb. However, Rattray had died from a heart attack only days before the incident and perhaps that shock threw everyone at the Met off-kilter.
On another side of the question – women as victims of male intimidation – she is equally trenchant. Asked if she has ever felt patronised, harassed or dominated by men she has worked with, she doesn’t bite.
“Look, I can’t comment on others’ experiences and I’ve certainly seen people enduring things that I would regard as bullying and nasty and absolutely wrong. But for myself? Of course, I’ve had my run-ins. I’ve been shouted at by people who are having a bad day. But that’s something you sign up for, it comes with the territory. And I have to say that I’ve never felt that any of these bad experiences came about because I was a woman.”
What she has found hard over the years is the toll that her globetrotting career has taken on family life with her husband and daughter in Gloucestershire. “My 15-year-old asked me last week why I couldn’t spend bank holiday with her: I told her I had to be at Glyndebourne because the conductor had called for a rehearsal. It was a terrible wrench, as it always is, but I am not sure if there is anything that can be done about it. Do I have a right as a mother to ask for special consideration? If I do, why not rights for dads too? You have to be available, that’s the deal. But I wouldn’t say there’s a conspiracy against parents in the classical music world: I used to bring my daughter into rehearsals when she was a little nipper, and there was
never a problem about it, never.”
After nine years away from Giulio Cesare, her interpretation will sound significantly different, she believes. In the interim, Connolly has developed a bent for the giddy romantic heights of Wagner – a composer whose music she first tackled at Glyndebourne when she sang a lusciously beautiful Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde (which she has also now sung at Bayreuth and Covent Garden) – and the demands of the music have left an impact. “Wagner has altered my voice, I suppose. It’s got heavier at the top – I can’t do flyaway notes above the stave the way that I used to, I have to hit them more squarely. But it’s also got so much richer and deeper lower down the range. I’m happy about this. I wouldn’t want to repeat myself – I can’t see the point.”
There’s little danger of that – at 55, she has a diary that any singer of her age would envy. On the horizon are a regal Britten role “strictly under wraps”, Gluck’s Orfeo at English National Opera, as well as a new
Wagnerian assignment, Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, at the Met, and Fricka in Ring cycles at Covent Garden and in Madrid. Her latest CD of English song (featuring two previously unperformed pieces by Britten) will be released shortly on the Chandos label, and in September she starts a two-year residency at the Wigmore Hall, during which she will give masterclasses and recitals.
Although she’s always been someone ready to venture outside the mainstream, she’s not currently planning any further forays into jazz
– a genre in which she’s rated notably higher than other of her classical colleagues. Instead she’s collaborating with former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones on some new songs and a theatrical piece to a text by Strindberg. Is the Dame secretly into hard rock?
“You might be surprised to know that I’ve been a Led Zeppelin fan since my youth,” she says. ‘They’ve written some really fantastic music, so inventive and passionate. John Paul is a really gifted composer, and I can’t wait to hear what he has come up with.”
Glyndebourne opens its 2018 season tomorrow with Madama Butterfly. Giulio
Cesare opens on June 10. Tickets: 01273 815000; glyndebourne.com
‘I feel Giulio Cesare put me on the map, internationally, and also opened Handel opera up to a new public’