South African soprano Elizabeth Connell dies at 65

Eliza­beth Con­nell, who died of can­cer on Feb­ru­ary 18 at the age of 65, was “a ded­ic­ated artist with a pop­u­lar fol­low­ing who paced her career to per­fec­tion”, said The Guard­ian. Born in Port Eliza­beth, South Africa, she stud­ied in Bri­tain at the Lon­don Opera Centre and made her debut as a mezzo-soprano at Wex­ford as Var­vara in Kát’a Kaban­ová in 1972.

Con­nell was acclaimed for her per­form­ances of the great Strauss, Verdi and Wag­ner heroines. Fol­low­ing her debut at Wex­ford Opera Fest­ival in 1972, she sang at the open­ing of the Sydney Opera House in Prokofiev’s War and Peace in 1973, and con­tin­ued to have a spe­cial rela­tion­ship with Opera Aus­tralia.  Fol­low­ing a five-year asso­ci­ation with Eng­lish National Opera, she was a freel­ance artist with the major opera houses.

She appeared at the opera houses of Lon­don, Paris, Vienna, Ber­lin, Munich, Ham­burg, New York (Met­ro­pol­itan Opera), San Fran­cisco, Milan (La Scala), Naples and Geneva in a wide rep­er­toire and at the Bayreuth, Salzburg, Orange, Ver­ona and Glyn­de­bourne Fest­ivals. Con­nell had a suc­cess­ful col­lab­or­a­tion with con­duct­ors such as Abbado, Muti, Sino­poli, Giulini, Sawal­lisch, Mack­er­ras, Downes, Sir Colin Davis, Maazel, Lev­ine, Ozawa and Elder.

In con­cert, her per­form­ances included Beethoven’s Ninth Sym­phony and Missa Sol­em­nis and Mahler’s Eighth Sym­phony with con­duct­ors such as Abbado, Giulini, Maazel, Sino­poli and Boulez. In recital, she appeared with Geof­frey Par­sons, Gra­ham John­son, Eugene Asti and Lamar Crowsen in Milan, Geneva, Sydney, Johan­nes­burg and at the Wig­more Hall.

Then, just as she might have been expec­ted to begin to wind down, she blos­somed in her 60s in immensely tax­ing roles such as Tur­an­dot and Elektra, her voice sound­ing as youth­ful as ever.

Engage­ments in recent sea­sons included Kostel­nicka in Jen­ufa, Ortrud in Lohen­grin, Norma, Abi­gaille in Nabucco and Ariadne in ‘ Ariadne auf Naxos for Opera Aus­tralia; Ortrud, Fidelio and Tristan und Isolde at Staat­soper Ber­lin, Isolde in Ham­burg, Senta in Der flie­gende Holländer in Ham­burg and Ber­lin and Elektra in Ber­lin, Mad­rid, Bor­deaux and Mon­tréal as well as the Färberin in a new pro­duc­tion of Die Frau ohne Schat­ten in Frank­furt and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Most recently she sang Ger­trude in Hän­sel und Gretel for the Royal Opera,with world­wide Tele­cast and DVD release. There were also con­certs of Jen­ufa with  Daniel Hard­ing as well as Fidelio with the Lon­don Phil­har­monic Orchestra.

In Decem­ber 2008, Eliza­beth Con­nell had a tri­umphant suc­cess at the open­ing night of Puccini’s Tur­an­dot at the Royal Opera House Cov­ent Garden, the most recent role added to her rep­er­toire, which for the past two sea­sons she also sang in Ham­burg and Opera Australia.

In April 2011 she was due to sing Lady in a new pro­duc­tion of Macbeth for Opera Aus­tralia, how­ever she had to can­cel at short notice because of a med­ical emer­gency. Her final per­form­ance was a recital on 27 Novem­ber 2011 in Hast­ings, UK.

Her record­ings include Guil­laume Tell under Ric­cardo Chailly, Mahler’s Sym­phony No 8 under Klaus Tennstedt, Franz Schreker’s Die Gezeich­neten under Lothar Zagrosek, Schubert lieder with Gra­ham John­son, oper­atic scenes by Wag­ner and Strauss under Muhai Tang, and Owen Win­grave under Richard Hickox. Her 1997 record­ing of the role of Isolde under Eve Queler demon­strated both her burn­ished, jewel-like tone and a legato line made up of anim­ated phrases alert to text. The character’s anger and sar­casm in Act I were con­veyed through bit­ing con­son­ants and tonal col­our­ing rather than weight of voice; the Liebestod too was char­ac­ter­ist­ic­ally infused with humanity.

• Eliza­beth Con­nell, opera singer, born 22 Octo­ber 1946; died 18 Feb­ru­ary 2012

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