Sutherland: Voice vs. Temperment
MD
Given the recent thread about Sutherland laziness with diction and
non-involvement onstage, I just saw the video of a 1977 BORGIA with
Australian Opera, and I have to tell you.... this lady could hold her
own with perhaps any other singing actress save Callas. The voice is in
magnificent shape, and she hurls dramatic and vocal thunderbolts about
the auditiorium throughout the performance. I don't think I've ever
seen her as involved in the drama as in this performance. Part of it
certainly is due to her excellent Alfonso, who clearly gave her a
wonderful foil during her angry scenes with him. I heartily recommend
this video to anyone. It's a visual and vocal feast.
MD
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she seldom ever did. I had a video from Covent Garden from the early 80s
(if I remember properly) of her Borgia (with Kraus) and she acts up a
storm. Her entrance aria and the final arias are wonderfully acted but
it's in the confrontation scene with the Duke that she displayed a side
I had never heard or seen before. The anger is incredible and she looks
and sounds like she's about to pick up furniture and maybe the Duke and
toss it all over the room.
Best John
kittehawk
I couldn't agree more. I saw her sing it at the Sydney Opera House ( a
staged performance in the Concert Hall) in January, 1982, she was in
magnificent voice and the auditorium is big enough to allow her to throw
that huge voice around around with complete abandon. I don't care what
anyone says, she may not have been the greatest actress in the world, but by
God, she had great stage presence, you didn't look at anyone else one stage
when she was there.
Kestrel
MD wrote:
--
A Tsar Is Born
news:3B8CFE96...@bigpond.com...
> Hi,
>
> I couldn't agree more. I saw her sing it at the Sydney Opera House ( a
> staged performance in the Concert Hall) in January, 1982, she was in
> magnificent voice and the auditorium is big enough to allow her to throw
> that huge voice around around with complete abandon. I don't care what
> anyone says, she may not have been the greatest actress in the world, but
by
> God, she had great stage presence, you didn't look at anyone else one
stage
> when she was there.
>
> Kestrel
Absolutely true.
She was a very impressive woman, and if she occasionally blew off the
romantic side of a role (I think she just couldn't take all the stuff about
beauty in the librettos seriously when it referred to her, who had always
been told she was homely), when she had the chance to command the stage, she
could take it against anybody.
When she sang a role that people remembered (or thought they remembered)
with an instinctive actress like Callas, the comparison made some people
deplore Sutherland's lack of poetry, but when I saw singers of less presence
take on Norma or Elvira or Maria Stuarda, I found the comparisons far more
telling.
She wasn't an actress, but she was a prima donna.
It's nice to get the two in one package, but if you can't get that, and
you're at an opera, I say: get a prima donna.
(This is also true, by the way, of Caballe, as one can see from the videos
of Norma and Roberto Devereaux.)
(I'm sorry Joan left Lucrezia so late; she certainly does a nice job on the
video.)
Hans Lick
atsar...@hotmail.com
Mark D. Lew
<ench...@herodotus.com> wrote:
[quoting Kestrel]
> > [...] but by
> > God, she had great stage presence, you didn't look at anyone else one stage
> > when she was there.
> [...] It's nice to get the two in one package, but if you can't get that, and
> you're at an opera, I say: get a prima donna.
Well, for the lead roles anyway. You'd hate to have someone like her in
the chorus or in a comprimaria role.
mdl
kittehawk
I just thank God that living in London from 1964-1981 enabled me to see and hear
Sutherland in opera and concert. I saw her Norma, La Fille, Violetta (which I
hated) Maria Stuarda, all at CG, concert performances of Semiramide, Rodelinda.
Plus many performances at the Sydney Opera House.
Her Norma had a grandeur to it, but the three times I saw her sing it I never
thought that she was in voice, certainly not in Casta Diva which is fiendish to
sing at the best of times.
BTW I never thought Marilyn Horne (the Adalgisa on two of those occasions) had a
particularly large voice, which is how I've read descriptions of it, I've always
considered it to be a rather compact sound which carried well. Any comments??
Several years ago the Australian Opera restaged Lucrezia Borgia with a very,
very ordinary house singer in the title role, who in Australia, is regarded as
being a very fine singing actress, (I personally find her an appalling singer),
and all the time I was watching I was trying to find Lucrezia on stage, she had
nothing, no personality and no vocal gifts, this was brought home very
forcefully when Nelly Miriciou came out here and sang Lucrezia as a guest artist
several years later. She may not have had Sutherland's vocal or physical
presence, but you didn't look elsewhere whilst she was on stage either.
Kestrel
Tsar Is Born wrote:
--
REG
and the perception. The voice "merged" quite well with JS, and that combined
with a very focused tone was half the battle. The other half, I think, was
an extraordinarily lucky recording career, and a voice which worked very
well in the studio; to the degree we use records as aides-memoire of
performances, one could be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that the
voice was larger than it was.
"kittehawk" <kitt...@bigpond.com> wrote in message
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