Connolly, that is. Her recital at Alice Tully Hall was sensational. This was not entirely a surprise. Sarah Connolly is pretty much wonderful by definition, but I've only seen her in concert and in opera so far, not in recital, and I didn't know until Wednesday night just how brilliantly she functions in that format.
Talk about good karma. I was supposed to see Sarah Connolly in recital when I was in London, a double act with Felicity Lott, but she withdrew due to illness and Felicity flew sublimely solo. So here I am, two months later, new country, and here's Sarah again — and the Schumann on the New York program bears a striking resemblance to the Schumann which was on her London program. For me, the chief selling point of the London recital was the chance to hear either Felicity or Sarah sing Frauenliebe und -leben. Now I've heard them both sing it, and whole recital besides from each of them. Spoilt little me.
And thank god I had the chance to hear Sarah's take on it because it's possible I may not live to see it bettered. Much as I've always loved that song cycle, I've never exactly felt riveted by it — until Sarah. This was almost the Lieder equivalent of one of those Baroque abandoned-woman cantatas, but subtler, more painful, more utterly compelling. She drew me in completely, then knocked me about a bit. Her voice has a similar effect: meltingly gorgeous, but entirely capable of delivering a slap in the face when it's called for. I loved every minute of it. I don't think I've ever heard a song cycle receive many cheers. A couple of people even stood.
That was clearly the centrepiece of the recital, but it was all fantastic. All Schumann in the first half: a desperately pretty "Widmung", the "Hochländisches Wiegenlied", which I didn't know but fell for immediately, and a cycle for which I think she should maybe be granted a monopoly, the seriously lovely Maria Stuart Lieder. All English songs in the second half: Howells, Gurney, Bennett, and the biggest chunk was Britten's A Charm of Lullabies. Everything she's good at in German songs, she's good at in English songs, to put it boringly. The Howells and Gurney were the best surprises for me, mostly for the chance they afforded that voice to just glow and glow. The Britten lullabies were excellent of course, both the ones that sound like lullabies (sigh) and the couple that don't.
Diction so good you don't notice how good it is, a voice so warm you'd fall asleep if it weren't keeping you so enrapturedly awake, an engaging, intimate stage presence from which every gesture and word just seems to arise spontaneously — all that ideal recital stuff, Sarah Connolly has in spades. I hope she and I continue our habit of visiting the same cities at the same time, because I could definitely get used to this.
P.S. Zachary Woolfe says it properly, and better, in the New York Times. I agree with his every word.
