Page 688 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

melancholy tended to run through Connolly’s chosen texts, broadly of a restless
import or an aching reflection.

Samuel Barber was a baritone himself and a significant proportion of his works
list are art-songs. Not requiring time to warm her voice Connolly without
hesitation pitched straight into Barber’s early set of Three Songs, Op.10 settings
of James Joyce poetry. Displaying her splendidly clear tone and impressive
phrasing, Connelly was highly responsive to the meaning of the Joyce verses in
songs that underline Barber’s status as a song composer of distinction.

Connolly has a firm association with Mark-Anthony Turnage having sung in his
operas The Silver Tassie and Twice Through the Heart. At the recent Aldeburgh
Festival, Connolly and Middleton gave the premiere of Turnage’s Songs of Sleep
and Regret comprising of settings of seven poems by Emily Dickinson, William
Shakespeare, James Joyce, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot and Stevie Smith.
Turnage used an eighth poem I look into my glass by Hardy as his inspiration
for a piano interlude, not a song setting. In especially fine voice, Connolly
delivered the verse unerringly and with splendid clarity. It was enjoyable
making first acquaintance with Turnage’s appealing and accessible song cycle.
Most successful was Chausson’s masterwork the Poème de l’amour et de la
mer (Poem of Love and the Sea) based on verse by his friend Maurice Bouchor.
Clearly relishing the dreamy, sweetly scented French text Connolly produced a
sensuous flow of passionate expression. The two sections of the Poème are
separated by a piano interlude profitably played by Middleton. Although
separated from Chausson’s Poème by only a few years Connolly entered
different territory with composers of the Second Viennese School.
Schoenberg’s Erwartung (Expectation) and Jesus Bettelt (Jesus begs) settings of
Richard Dehmel text, and Berg’s Dem Schmerz sein Recht (In praise of pain) text
by Friedrich Hebbel. Exerting firm control Connolly clearly savoured the cool
beauty of the German texts.

To conclude her recital Connolly chose four popular cabaret songs by Kurt Weill

the German/American composer. There are a couple of those cabaret songs I
particularly enjoy hearing. First My Ship from the Broadway musical Lady in the
Dark with lyrics by Ira Gershwin originally sung by Gertrude Lawrence in the
role of Liza Elliott and second Je ne t’aime pas (I don’t love you) with lyrics by
Maurice Magre for cabaret and film star Lys Gauty. Though Connolly sings the
Weill quite well this is repertoire where she has to be compared to the greatest
exponents. Head and shoulders above the competition is the chanteuse and
actress Ute Lemper. With such consummate artistry and impactful drama, it
always feels as if Lemper is living the songs and once heard her performances
are never forgotten. Putting the Weill songs aside, Sarah Connolly in her recital