Dame Sarah Connolly is one of the world’s leading mezzo-sopranos. She is well known for roles ranging from Caesar in Handel’s Giulio Cesare to Sesto in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito and Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. She has sung in many of the world’s great opera houses, won masses of awards for her work, and was awarded a DBE in 2017. She talks about the “balls of steel” she developed in her childhood, what she has learnt from playing men and what it’s like when a pandemic collides with cancer.