Dame Sarah Connolly

Speaker 30:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Presenter0:04

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:41

My castaway this week is the singer Dame Sarah Connolly. A mezzo-soprano, her performances have earned her the title Queen of the UK's opera scene as well as her damehood. She's a favourite with audiences around the world, appearing at some of the most prestigious venues and has been a regular at Glindbourne for almost 30 years. Her musical gifts were obvious in childhood. Growing up in the North East, she was, she says, a precocious performer with a flair for improvisation. By the age of seven, she was playing pop songs requested by her classmates on the piano. At ten, she was composing music in the style of Mozart and Debussy. By 11, she had run out of exams to take. Initially intending to be a pianist or jazz singer, she found her voice as a soloist following a break with the BBC singers. Though her gift for improvisation continued to come in handy, she came up with a memorable costume, what you might call a full Nelson, for the last night of the proms. She appeared as the famous Admiral in full military regalia. It's one of numerous male or so-called trouser roles she's taken on, including Julius Caesar. However, despite the name, trousers are incidental. Getting to the heart of a character is everything. She says, My strength is not to stand there and make a lot of noise. My strength is more psychological investigation using vocal colour. It's taken me a little time, but that's now what I like to do. Dame Sarah Connolly, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Dame Sarah Connolly2:07

Oh, thank you, Lauren. It's such a pleasure to be here. Really an honour.

Presenter2:11

Sarah, I interview a lot of singers and I feel like everybody has their own secret elixir for their voice. There's always a potion that they think helps them if they feel something sneaking up on them.

Dame Sarah Connolly2:20

Oh, it's just endless amounts of water. It really is. I mean, I've spoken to enough voice doctors who tell me, Oh, yes, have hot drinks, but nothing else. Don't get reliant upon something that you may not be able to have in some weird part of the world. You know, for example, if you have that sage tea that you need, sage tea tastes revolting, by the way. So don't get reliant upon something that you can't necessarily have. And that goes psychologically as well, you know, that talisman, that thing that you need, that you don't have. Don't get reliant on that. Just do some meditation, some thinking, some deep breathing.

Presenter2:55

I know a lot of performers for whom just before a performance they're like they want to run away. Do you know what I mean? They're looking for the exits, but then as soon as the lights go up, actually they're in a different headspace. Is is that ha

Dame Sarah Connolly3:03

Usually

Dame Sarah Connolly3:06

How it works for you? Yes, it's different every time. The worst time for me was I buried mum on the Friday, let's say, I can't remember which day, but let's just say it's a Friday. And the Saturday I had a performance of Xerxes and I felt this huge sort of lump in my throat and I was going to cry. There was something about a certain rigor that you need to get on the stage. You can't be, you know, you have to put your own stuff to one side and actually walking into your dressing room.

Presenter3:32

And actually

Dame Sarah Connolly3:34

With your costumes there, whatever rubbish is going on in your life, whatever sadness, whatever trauma, when you walk into your dressing room and your costumes hanging up, I do actually feel a huge sigh of relief that for three hours I can just concentrate on what I was meant to do. And it really is very, very liberating, and that's how I know I'm in the right job. We're going to be hearing your Eight music choices Today, so let's get It started what? I didn't really know about Led Zeppelin until a bit later on in life, but Led Zeppelin when I did get to know it, it just blew my mind. And then I've got to know John Paul Jones because he's a composer now and is writing music for singers. So I've met him, we've been up out for a few drinks.

Presenter4:18

And why have you chosen this track in particular?

Dame Sarah Connolly4:20

Stairway to Heaven is one of those songs that just grows from some very simple folky melody and I love that. I love the idea that something comes out of something and you get one flavour and then you peel away something else and it gets deeper and deeper. That's what I love about all music, that gives you one statement and then later on it changes into something else and keeps changing like a chrysalis. And it's also beautiful.

Speaker 34:49

There's a feeling I get

Speaker 34:52

When I look to the west and my spirit is crying

Speaker 35:02

My thoughts I have seen.

Speaker 35:04

Of smoke through the trees, And the voices of those who stand

Presenter5:21

Stairway to Heaven, led Zeppelin.

Presenter5:24

I love your description of what you do, Dame Sarah Connolly, psychological investigation using vocal colour. Tell me more about that.

Dame Sarah Connolly5:32

Well, I feel it's a singer's job to investigate the composer's response to a poem or a text or a lyric or whatever you call it. That's what really interests me, is the symbiosis, is the electricity between why a composer chose that poem. Now, the poem in itself might not be great, or Ronald Duncan's libretto for Rape of Lucretia on its own isn't anything to write home about, I don't think, but it really, really works with Britain's imagination. And I don't think it's really up for argument that one can be separated from the other, because it's actually about the composer's response to the words.

Presenter6:12

And as a mezzo soprano you have the opportunity to perform those so-called trouser roles very enjoyably.

Dame Sarah Connolly6:19

Breeches parts, I think they're all. Stomping around the stage. What's the attraction apart from all the stomping? The attraction is primarily vocal, because it was written all this music was written for the Castrati back in the 18th century. And they were the Pavarottis, they were the Elton Johns of their day. They earned the highest money. They got the girls. They couldn't get them pregnant. Well, for anyone who doesn't

Presenter6:20

Yeah.

Presenter6:42

Well, for anyone who doesn't

Dame Sarah Connolly6:43

Uh Down the history of the castrati, can you fill us in? Yes, they were boys who were castrated when they were 12 because they were good singers, exceptional musicians, and their parents, it was actually illegal in all countries, but they still, especially in Italy, they went ahead and castrated these poor boys. Many of them died, hoping that they would go on to be rock stars. And some did, and many didn't. But those who did survive, like Farinelli and Caffarelli, they went on to have music written for them by Handel and so many other composers. I love investigating who these castrati were and what was Handel's response to them, in particular all the stories about the arguments on stage and leaving the stage in a flounce and

Presenter7:17

Hmm.

Dame Sarah Connolly7:33

Of course, just all

Presenter7:33

Old stories from the past. Yeah, we never do that. No, not these days.

Dame Sarah Connolly7:35

Yeah, we never do that.

Presenter7:37

I think we'd better take a break for some music. Disc number two. What is it?

Dame Sarah Connolly7:41

It's Handel's As Steals the Morn. This is the most beautiful duet from La Allegro, Il Pensiero, et il moderato. I have chosen a beautiful recording with Lucy Crowe and Mark Padmore. This duet lifts the heavy clouds. When I listen to this duet, I feel that the sun is coming out and it's some of Handel's most beautiful music.

Speaker 38:13

The state has come.

Speaker 38:21

But long to come to the shades of

Speaker 38:30

I still thought.

Speaker 38:35

A ponder

Speaker 38:41

And pass the shades away.

Dame Sarah Connolly8:43

Yeah.

Speaker 38:46

And earth the shades away.

Speaker 38:55

I to shoot away.

Speaker 39:03

Run the way

Presenter9:07

As Steals the Morn by Handel with Mark Padmore, Lucy Crowe and the English Concert conducted by Andrew Mancy.

Presenter9:15

Dame Sarah Connolly, you grew up then in Middlesbrough with your mum Jane and your dad Gerald and your sister Belinda too. Would you describe the family as musical?

Dame Sarah Connolly9:24

Yes, I'd say in their way. They weren't professional musicians, but Dad he had a huge discography. He would have music from Jamaica where he met Mum. He'd come with his uh Harry Belafonte Calypso music and before he met Mum he was in the RNVR and he would be stationed all round Europe.

Dame Sarah Connolly9:46

and he told me that he saw Tito Gobby and Maria Calla sing Tosca in Rome. I have to believe him,'cause I've got no proof. Instead of going to the pub and getting drunk with his friends, he went to the opera house.

Presenter9:58

So he was a music lover. He was a pilot, though.

Dame Sarah Connolly10:00

Yes, he was a pilot. He flew hurricanes and Spitfires and also bombers. And he was in the Pacific on HMS Illustrious and got a DSO for flying a reconnaissance plane over the oil fields.

Dame Sarah Connolly10:15

Very brave man.

Presenter10:16

And he'd come to Middlesbrough for work. He worked at the ICI chemical plant, I think, a director there. Yes. For people who don't know, it was a real icon of the North East skyline. I think Ridley Scott based the opening sequence of Blade Runner on it. It's this incredible

Dame Sarah Connolly10:20

Get

Dame Sarah Connolly10:29

On it.

Presenter10:30

Place. Middlesbrough very much an industrial town then. What kind of access, apart from his record collection, did you have to the arts, to music?

Dame Sarah Connolly10:39

Well Billingham Forum had a good theatre as well. We went to see lots of things there. Dad was again very knowledgeable about literature and particularly plays. And anything that came to the Darlington Civic Theatre or to the Billingham Forum Theatre we would go and see. So we went to see l whatever was playing. We went to see the magic flute at the Darlington Civic. I remember that was the first opera I saw.

Presenter10:54

Mm.

Dame Sarah Connolly11:04

Must have been about seven or eight. It was wonderful. I remember the snake, the magical snake. And you yourself.

Presenter11:08

Self were a very accomplished pianist from quite a young age. Tell me about your repertoire when you were little. How how did it feel when you were playing, too?

Dame Sarah Connolly11:17

I had a wonderful piano teacher, Mrs. Rain and then Mrs. Overand in Darlington, and they were very pleased with me because I could do it, you know, and I worked very hard, but it was a great pleasure. And I quickly went through the grades. And so at the age of 10, I could play, I was grade six, grade seven, I could play quite a lot of things then. And also I could play by ear, so I could pick things off the radio, which delighted all my mates, you know. I could play the charts.

Presenter11:45

I think it's

Dame Sarah Connolly11:45

It's time for your third disc. What have you chosen and why?

Dame Sarah Connolly11:48

Well, when you are thinking as a musician, which music shall I have, and all the music I listened to as a teenager, I'd have to be honest and say the person I listened to the most was David Bowie. We waited for his discs to come out, you know, sort of it's coming out tomorrow, and someone would buy it and we'd pour over it and listen and analyse every single harmony change, what he did with his voice. And every single album was a complete invention and a complete joy.

Dame Sarah Connolly12:19

The colours that he brought to not only the album covers, but his voice was just magical as well. There's nothing he can't do with it. And as a singer, even then, I knew I was listening to a master. So the choice is something I can bop to on my desert island, would be Rebel Rebel.

Speaker 312:36

Say I'm gone.

Speaker 312:38

It's everything. What they are

Speaker 312:42

Rebel, Rebel, Victoria Dress.

Speaker 312:46

Ramble, rabble, dump face is a mess.

Speaker 312:50

Remo level out the game no

Speaker 312:54

Hot tramp, I love you so much.

Presenter13:06

David Bowie and Rebel Rebel. Dame Sarah, that track takes you back to growing up. You and your sister went to boarding school in York when you were young. Did you enjoy your time there?

Dame Sarah Connolly13:18

Yes, it was okay. I made some good friends. I would say the education was pretty poor. Did you feel that at the time?

Dame Sarah Connolly13:25

Yes, I did. But my main interest was music, and that wasn't being looked after either. And I asked Mum if I could leave and go to a music school, because there was just nothing happening to inspire me at all. And so after much begging, she took me along to Chatham's music school for an audition. And I passed the audition, I got in, but she didn't tell me till a few years later. She didn't tell me that I'd got in. So I went back to school assuming I hadn't. And she said, no, I didn't think it was the right place for you. And I would like to imagine at least that the musical expression that I had would would be.

Dame Sarah Connolly14:07

fulfilled in some way.

Presenter14:09

Uh

Dame Sarah Connolly14:09

So that Thought that you hadn't got in. Was that hard to handle? Yeah, it was very disappointing. I would say I went into the deep freeze. I didn't feel happy, and there was a fair amount of bullying going on, and they didn't really keep tabs on that. So it was quite good, I suppose, lesson for life to learn to be tough in boarding school. So you can get on there, you can get on anywhere, I reckon. In fact, when I went to Sixth Form College after that, College of Further Education in Clarendon, Nottingham, it all came out. You know, it's all this was a wonderful chance to play in a pop group, to play in a jazz band, to play in an orchestra, to sing in a small vocal group. I accompanied all these wonderful singers and violinists. It was like a huge flowering, everything that had been suppressed for so long.

Presenter14:55

And when did you decide that you were going to pursue music as a career? This was going to be your life?

Dame Sarah Connolly15:00

I think it was always going to be there, Lauren. I think in some form I don't think my parents, particularly mum, had any vision that I would be a singer.

Dame Sarah Connolly15:09

She was always supportive of me, extremely supportive, and very critical, I might add. But I don't think I ever thought I would do anything other than music, if that makes sense.

Presenter15:19

We've got your next disc to share. This is number four. Why have you chosen?

Dame Sarah Connolly15:23

Wasn't it?

Presenter15:23

Yeah.

Dame Sarah Connolly15:24

Who wouldn't choose Miles Davis to be in their life on any desert island disc? He's a genius, a master of invention, reinvention. He distilled his craft and his sound that he wanted to make. He's very particular with Bill Evans, who didn't always get the credit he deserved, to be honest, because there were some wrangles about who wrote what for the album Kinda Blue, which for me is up there with the best of Miles Davis, if not the best. So I've chosen Blue in Green from Kind of Blue.

Presenter16:55

Miles Davis and Blue in Green. So, Dame Sarah Connolly, you went to the Royal College of Music to study, but I did read that you at the time developed some serious piano performance anxiety while you were there.

Dame Sarah Connolly17:08

Yeah.

Presenter17:08

Yeah.

Dame Sarah Connolly17:08

Yeah.

Presenter17:08

Yeah.

Dame Sarah Connolly17:08

What was going on? I didn't want to perform in front of anybody. It was just about all right in the end of year exams. In front of a couple of examiners. I wasn't a bad pianist by any means, but I wanted to really accompany musicians.

Presenter17:23

And where were those nerves coming from? Was that a small fish in a big pond thing?

Dame Sarah Connolly17:27

Yes, yes. There were so many people that were so much better than me and it was the same with singing. I was also very frightened to sing. I felt, I just had to say you're there to learn, Sarah. You're just here to learn and listen and watch. I listened to so many recordings in the library and learned so much from that. So that sense of suddenly having been selected, but now you're in the spotlight. Yes, it was terrifying. And I felt constantly frightened of standing up and performing. And I looked at my colleagues and they were all right about it, but I wasn't.

Presenter17:31

I was

Presenter17:49

Yeah.

Presenter18:01

After your time at the Royal College, you joined the BBC Singers for five years. How tricky was it for you to make the leap from being a full time member of a professional choir to then pursue a career as an opera singer? Must have taken a lot of self belief.

Dame Sarah Connolly18:12

Yeah.

Dame Sarah Connolly18:14

The old demons came back then, I have to say. But I had done a bit of solo work in Europe with Philippe Herweger singing Bach cantatas, Bach oratorios, and so I had learned quite a lot about Baroque style. So I knew then how to make that work for Handel operas and Handel's music. I found it very hard to turn up for an opera audition, singing stylistically and singing well, but then they say to me, but can you sword fight? No, no, I can't. I've never done a sword fight. And what have you done on the stage? Not a lot. So you haven't had any training then in acting? So no, no, I haven't. I wouldn't get the job. They wouldn't listen to what I was doing musically. They were only interested in what I considered to be things that you can learn on the job, as it were.

Presenter19:05

How did you make them listen?

Dame Sarah Connolly19:06

I auditioned for English Touring Opera and sang an aria from Verter and I understood this music required tremendous pathos but not actual tears. Those were to come later in the show and so I held them back.

Dame Sarah Connolly19:28

And the director, Robert Shavara, said, I gave you the role because you were the only one that didn't cry.

Dame Sarah Connolly19:33

I said, thank God for that. He said, everyone else was doing the fake tear stuff and you didn't, but I could hear it in your voice. I could hear that you were holding it back and that's much more interesting. So I was very grateful to Robert giving me that chance to get my first role, really. It's time for some more music, Sarah. What are we going to hear next? Well, it's got to be something from Peter Grimes. I thought I would choose an aria. The music for me is some of the best music in the opera. And it comes when Ellen Orford is, she's remembering that she embroidered a jumper for the boy who's gone missing. And she's saying, I remember when I embroidered this jumper and what it means and how could I let this happen to Peter and the boy. And the music is so beautiful.

Speaker 320:41

We won't.

Speaker 320:46

A point of sea.

Presenter21:18

Clare Watson, singing Embroidery in Childhood from Benjamin Britton's Peter Grimes, with the composer conducting the Royal Opera House Orchestra.

Presenter21:26

Dame Sarah Connolly, once your career got going, you were in demand all around the world. How did you manage that need to follow the roles and your own life outside of work?

Dame Sarah Connolly21:36

I've made a promise to my daughter, who's now 18, that I would only do one foreign opera gig a year and these jobs can last two to three months because I didn't want my daughter to turn into somebody who missed their mum so much that it affected her later on in life. She does miss me and did miss me, and I think if you asked her now, she'd say yes. There were many times when she was very sad.

Dame Sarah Connolly22:00

And you must have missed her. Oh my goodness me, the guilt. It's just terrible. The guilt buying, I should say. The sort of endless presence is hopeless really. She saw through it all. It's one of the very sad things that um an opera singer has to be away from their child, but I have a very supportive husband and I think to have a supportive partner is probably the only way you can bring up a child and for that child to be happy. The art of course have suffered

Presenter22:01

And you must have missed

Presenter22:28

Do you

Dame Sarah Connolly22:29

Across the boards. Over the past eighteen months. Months

Presenter22:31

How concerned are you about the future of opera?

Dame Sarah Connolly22:35

The future of opera in Europe is in very good hands. The future of British opera singers I'm not so sure about. Why not? I'm very worried that without some kind of situation where British musicians can spend a significant amount of time in Europe establishing their careers, I am very concerned that what we have at the moment, which is roughly

Presenter22:42

Why not?

Dame Sarah Connolly22:57

twenty percent of the global excellence. Some of the greatest singers in the world are British. Where's that next generation going to come from if they can't get known?

Dame Sarah Connolly23:07

Not just through the Cardiff Singer of the World competition or these occasional competitions where people are thrust into the limelight. What about the hard work of networking, going to work like I did with Philippe Herweger and William Christie, for months and months and months on end, establishing yourself, audiences getting to hear you, working through the repertoire in all languages? How can we compete with our German, French, Portuguese, Austrian friends if we're not known?

Dame Sarah Connolly23:38

Uh

Presenter23:38

It's time for your next piece of music, Dame Sarah Connolly. What have you got for us?

Dame Sarah Connolly23:42

I've got um Schubert's Das Wirthaus from Winterheiser, a winter's journey, this extraordinary journey of a man who's been rejected in love and he sets off to try and find some consolation and doesn't find it.

Dame Sarah Connolly23:59

And he comes across this graveyard and Das Vierthaus means the inn, but he sees the graveyard as an inn, but there's no room for him, so he wanders on. But there's something very, very peaceful in a rather frightening way about this song.

Speaker 324:25

How fine and total art means

Speaker 324:36

Is mine a fake rock

Speaker 324:43

Holy reveal each eink.

Presenter25:17

Das Wirtshaus from Schubert's Winteriser, sung by Dietrich Fischer Dieskow, with Gerald Moore on the piano.

Presenter25:26

Dame Sarah Connolly, you had to take a break from singing in June 2019 when you were diagnosed with breast cancer. I note that in your Twitter bio you describe yourself as a chemotherapy survivor.

Dame Sarah Connolly25:37

Why? Yes, I felt when I was researching other singers who had suffered breast cancer, I couldn't find many names. I mean two.

Dame Sarah Connolly25:49

And I thought I would really love to know more about whether it affects the voice, what's my journey going to be like. And people, understandably, are very private about it. But I thought, I'm not ashamed of this. I am afraid. I'm very afraid. But I want to be there for to have this experience so that other people can ring me up and write to me and say, Oh, what happens when they give you this chemical? What happens to your voice? Should I carry on singing? So I decided to be very open about it.

Presenter26:23

And it's an experience that, as you put it, you survived. Has it changed you coming through that?

Dame Sarah Connolly26:30

Totally. Fear of your own literal death, knowing you've got these chemicals in your system, is horrific. I did feel mortal fear. The chemicals didn't get on well with me at all. I I had a terrible time with it. Some people seem to be okay. Everybody has a different experience. But for me it was terrifying.

Presenter26:52

So the treatment was tough.

Dame Sarah Connolly26:52

And I thought, Oh God, Sarah, you're being a big diva now. Stop it. Get over yourself And uh I just thought no I'm I'm in real pain here. This is terrible And I'm a fighting spirit. I am one of these people that gets on with it.

Presenter27:05

And how long did you have to stop singing for?

Dame Sarah Connolly27:08

I did one recital after the first chemotherapy and I felt like I was singing on 65% and I also felt like I'd been punched hard in the stomach and it was painful to breathe. I remember running my hands through my hair just before I went on stage and a great clump came out in my fist and I thought, Jesus, don't do that again.

Dame Sarah Connolly27:29

But you won't have any left by the second half. Um I thought that's it. Not going to do any more.

Dame Sarah Connolly27:35

Until all of this is finished.

Presenter27:37

And who are you now, after all of that? You're totally different, you said.

Dame Sarah Connolly27:41

In many ways I'm totally different. I would say that I feel more strength. I can't tell you the outpouring of love and affection I got from my musician friends on Facebook and Twitter, but particularly Facebook. And the showering with presents and gifts, totally unsolicited, just every single the postman was very busy. The support I had was astounding and I don't think one would get that if one didn't talk about it. So I really appreciated that. It was fabulous.

Presenter28:17

It's time for some more music, Dame Sarah Connolly. Your seventh today. What have you chosen?

Dame Sarah Connolly28:22

Richard Wagner's Dare Ring. I don't think I could survive without a jolly good drama.

Dame Sarah Connolly28:30

full of extreme personalities, extreme emotions, and also some very intimate private explorations of the soul, existential thinking and writing. And I do believe Wagner's Ring has it all.

Dame Sarah Connolly28:45

And I have chosen

Dame Sarah Connolly28:48

The Liebfall, the farewell of Vortan to his daughter, he's had to banish her to a rock for eternity until somebody comes to free her. But it's the father-daughter thing. It's him saying goodbye to his favourite daughter and the tenderness they feel and the light motif Wagner gives Vortan this parting farewell music. It's so beautiful.

Presenter30:18

Lebvoll Votan's Farewell from Wagner's Ring, sung by Hans Hotter with the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, conducted by Josef Kielbert.

Presenter30:27

So Dame Sarah, you heap praise on your favorite singers. How critical are you, I wonder, of your own voice? Can you extremely, you're so you can't just watch a performance back and enjoy it for

Dame Sarah Connolly30:33

Cassie, could you?

Dame Sarah Connolly30:37

Yeah.

Dame Sarah Connolly30:38

For its own sake? There's one or two I can. The live performance from the proms of Shaher Razad, even though I make a mistake in it, I'm singing without the music. And I'm also proud of the Julia Cesare from Gleinborn. So there are certain things that I think that was alright, but on the whole in a recording studio, it's very, very difficult to listen back to myself. You know, you were in a recording studio for six hours. It's quite easy to become introspective. And then maybe when you listen to it, you think I'm examining that too much instead of performing it.

Presenter31:11

Listening to you warning of the dangers of being cast adrift and becoming introspective, of course, leads me to the fact that we're about to cast you away to a solitary life on your desert island. Will that be a challenge?

Dame Sarah Connolly31:24

Yes, which is why I think the choice of music I have is so varied, that it will remind me of some of the most wonderful performances I've seen and discs I've listened to and colleagues I've met because some of these performances like The Ring I've also been involved in. And so I have many happy memories of all the people I've worked with. What will you miss the most? My daughter, my husband, my family life, my dogs, my cats. I'm a family person. I really do appreciate having my gorgeous daughter around with me, Lily. I would miss her company more than anything.

Presenter32:03

Well, we're going to give you one more disc to take with you. This is your last choice today.

Dame Sarah Connolly32:08

I sing a lot of Mala. Clearly I love Mala. Which Mala do I choose? It's been going round in my head. And I was reminded of a performance, this is not one of my recordings, I hasten to add, but I was reminded of a Mala 3 I did with Bernard Heitink at the proms and listening to the way the sixth movement began and thinking, I really am in heaven now. This is the greatest music I think I've ever heard. So I've chosen the sixth movement. It's subtitled What Love Tells Me and I do think Claudio Abado's lyrical, soft, gentle, persuasive conducting, this is really what love tells me.

Presenter33:57

Part of the sixth movement from Mahler's Third Symphony, played by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abado.

Presenter34:05

So Dame Sarah Connolly, I'm sending you away with three books. You can take the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to the island. You can also have a book of your choice.

Dame Sarah Connolly34:15

What would you like? Well, as many books as I would be allowed to have by Angela Carter. Well, I can give you one. Okay, I think it would be The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman. Why? Her writing is some of the most beautiful, expressive, sumptuous, luxurious, Baroque fantasy writing, but she also manages to make us really think about personality, who we are. It's quite scary, some of her propositions, her ideas, and she just has this understanding of Baroque gothic horror, and I find her engaging. I never get tired of rereading her books.

Presenter34:54

You can also have a luxury, something to make your time there a bit more bearable. What will that be? I would have a grand piano.

Dame Sarah Connolly35:00

To keep it in tune would be quite important because I've no idea how to tune a piano. Take a manual and a tuning kit. Yeah.

Presenter35:10

Mm-hmm.

Presenter35:11

I mean keeping the sand out is going to be a job in itself. So that'll keep you busy. Yes.

Dame Sarah Connolly35:13

Be a job in itself.

Presenter35:16

It's yours. And finally, and perhaps this is the most difficult for you, if you had to choose just one of these disks to save above the others, which would it be?

Dame Sarah Connolly35:25

It would be the Wagner, The Ring, Dare Ring. Why? I think it offers the most variety of huge emotional life experience. It would make me laugh, it would make me cross, it would make me happy, it would just engage and it would keep me interested and

Dame Sarah Connolly35:48

There's a huge life force in this piece.

Presenter35:51

Dame Sarah Connolly, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, Lauren. Thanks for having me.

Dame Sarah Connolly35:57

Yeah.

Presenter36:09

Hello, I really hope you enjoyed that interview with the singer dame Sarah Connolly, and I do hope she manages to keep the sand out of her grand piano.

Presenter36:17

We've cast many opera singers away over the years. They include Dame Janet Baker, Danielle Denise, Renee Fleming and Joyce Didonato. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds.

Speaker 336:48

This is Add to Playlist, a new podcast from BBC Radio 4 with me, Karis Matthews, and

Speaker 436:53

And me, Jeffrey Buacci.

Speaker 336:54

Ditch the streaming algorithm as we take you on a musical journey of discovery.

Speaker 437:00

In each show, we'll create a playlist of five tracks chosen by Karis and myself and with the help of a different studio guest each week, we'll explore the rich and unexpected web of connections between the music you love, hate and haven't even heard of.

Speaker 337:13

We have

Speaker 337:15

That's a promise. We'll go under the bonnet of our compositions and look closer at the nuts and bolts to reveal what's behind our

Speaker 437:23

Our favourite tunes? Just search for Add to Playlist on BBC Sounds.