Live Music Review: Lisa Hannigan at the Cork Opera House

5/5

In literary journal Winter Papers, Lisa Hannigan tells writer Paul Murray that her dream was to be Maria Callas. She auditioned for the opera, and found out she had a really quiet voice. “I was heartbroken. Wanting to be a singer but not really having any idea how.”

So Monday night, playing a sold out show at Cork Opera House, following two dates at Vicar Street over the weekend, must have felt pretty special for Hannigan, who has taken the long route to her richly deserved success.

It’s not her first time playing the songs of third album At Swim in the Opera House — she was here during Sounds from a Safe Harbour in September last year. They were still gestating then — she confides that she only finished writing some lyrics on the morning of that gig — but on Monday they are powerful, compelling, arresting. The tone is set with the tear-inducing opener ‘Ora’, “Won’t you come with me,” pines Hannigan, bringing the adoring faithful on a dream journey. She’s got a frog in her throat and apparently hits a dud note, repeating the track in full later, after a cover of ‘Silent Night’. Nobody complains on hearing it again.

She is joined by the support, Heather Woods Broderick, for the lullaby-like ‘O Sleep’ before Aaron Dessner of The National, who collaborated with Hannigan on At Swim and curated Sounds from a Safe Harbour, joins her from the fourth track, the Americana styled ‘Prayer for the Dying’. Unlike at that festival, where Dessner again provided guitar for Hannigan, there are no catcalls for National songs — tonight is all about Hannigan.

There is a new confidence evident; while the double hit of ‘Little Bird’ and ‘Passenger’ from her previous album (five years old!) are stirring, it’s the imagery-laden ‘Funeral Suit’ and dense ‘Undertow’ which enrapture. With a guitar sometimes played with a bow and Hannigan hitting impossibly high notes, there are hints of Sigus Ros.

An a capella rendition of Heaney’s ‘Anahorish’ is followed by the skittering ‘Barton’ and ‘A Sail’, our 21st song of the night, before the awestruck crowd stumble back out into the rain. Mesmerising.