Barbara Hannigan
The Canadian soprano tells Kate Molleson that, despite her conducting career rapidly gathering pace, the idea of giving up singing would be completely unthinkable
“ For me, my voice is in a peak place right now. I’m hungry to use it ”
Barbara Hannigan’s quantum career leap came with a wig, latex and Ligeti. 2011: the Canadian soprano-turned-conductor strode onto stage in thigh-high PVC platform boots, shushed the audience, opened her mouth, raised her arms and proceeded to sing, conduct and utterly inhabit ‘The Mysteries of the Macabre’ – a scene from Ligeti’s opera Le Grand Macabre in which a police chief inflicts S&M with brutal dexterity. It was Hannigan’s conducting debut, and she set the bar as high as her top notes.
That performance explains why Hannigan became muse to the world’s major composers. She calls them her ‘gang’: Sciarrino, Dutilleux, Brett Dean. Some she refers to with first names only: Gerald [Barry], George [Benjamin], Hans [Abrahamsen]. These composers have created new roles, often new sound worlds, around
