Born in County Durham, Dame Sarah Connolly studied piano and singing at the Royal College of Music, of which she is now a Fellow. Among many other roles she has sung Dido (Dido and Aeneas) at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, and the Royal Opera House, London; Composer (Ariadne auf Naxos),Clairon (Capriccio) and Gertrude (Brett Dean’s Hamlet) at the Metropolitan Opera, New York; Orfeo (Orfeo ed Euridice) and the title role in The Rape of Lucretia at Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich; the title role in Giulio Cesare and Phèdre (Hippolyte et Aricie) at Glyndebourne; Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde) at the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and Festspielhaus Baden- Baden; the title role in Ariodante and Sesto (La clemenza di Tito) at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence; Phèdre at Opéra national de Paris; the title role in Ariodante for Dutch National Opera and Wiener Staatsoper; Fricka (Das Rheingold and Die Walküre) at the Royal Opera House and Bayreuther Festspiele; and Ježibaba (Rusalka) at the Royal Opera House.

Connolly has also made frequent appearances at Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North and, particularly, English National Opera. Regularly partnered by Eugene Asti, Julius Drake, Malcolm Martineau and Joseph Middleton, she has appeared in recital in London, New York, Boston, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, San Francisco, Atlanta and Stuttgart; at the BBC Proms, Incontri in Terra di Siena at La Foce and Schubertíada de Vilabertran; and at the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Edinburgh and Oxford Lieder festivals.

Connolly is a frequent guest at the BBC Proms where, in 2009, she was a memorable guest soloist at the Last Night. She appears regularly with many of the world’s great orchestras under conductors such as Daniel Harding, Yannick Nézet- Séguin, Riccardo Chailly and Sir Simon Rattle. Connolly has recorded prolifically and twice been nominated for a Grammy Award. She was made a DBE in the 2017 Birthday Honours, having been made a CBE in the 2010 New Year Honours, and in 2012 received the Singer Award of the Royal Philharmonic Society in recognition of her outstanding services to music. In 2023 she was awarded The King’s Medal for Music, an award given annually to an outstanding individual or group of musicians who have had a major influence on the musical life of the nation.