Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE (7 November 1926 – 10 October 2010)[2] was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano known for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s to the 1980s.
Born
Joan Alston Sutherland
Died
Other names
La Stupenda[1]
Education
Occupation
Operatic soprano
Spouse
Children
1
She possessed a voice combining agility, accurate intonation, pinpoint staccatos,[3]atrill and a strong upper register, although music critics complained about her poor diction.[4][5]
Sutherland was the first Australian to win a Grammy Award, for the year 1961 Best Classical Performance – Vocal Soloist (with or without orchestra) presented in 1962.
She was known as La Stupenda (Italian for 'The Stupendous One') and is widely regarded as one of the greatest sopranos of all time.
Joan Sutherland was born in Sydney, Australia, to Scottish parents and attended St Catherine's School in the suburb of Waverley, New South Wales. As a child, she listened to and imitated her mother's singing exercises. Her mother, a mezzo-soprano, had taken voice lessons but never considered singing as a career. Sutherland was 18 years old when she began seriously studying voice with John and Aida Dickens. She made her concert debut in Sydney, as Dido in a production of Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, in 1947. After winning Australia's most important competition, the (Sydney) Sun Aria in 1949,[6] she came third after the baritone Ronal Jackson in radio 3DB's £1,000 Mobil Quest,[7] which she won a year later.[8] In 1951, she made her stage debut in Eugene Goossens's Judith. She then went to London to further her studies at the Opera School of the Royal College of Music with Clive Carey. She was engaged by the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as a utility soprano, and made her debut there on 28 October 1952, as the First Lady in The Magic Flute, followed in November by a few performances as Clotilde in Vincenzo Bellini's opera Norma, with Maria Callas as Norma.
Being an admirer of Kirsten Flagstad in her early career, she trained to be a Wagnerian dramatic soprano. In December 1952, she sang her first leading role at the Royal Opera House, Amelia in Un ballo in maschera. Other roles included Agathe in Der Freischütz, the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, Desdemona in Otello, Gilda in Rigoletto, Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Pamina in The Magic Flute. In 1953, she sang the role of Lady Rich in Benjamin Britten's Gloriana a few months after its world premiere, and created the role of Jenifer in Michael Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage, on 27 January 1955.
Sutherland married Australian conductor and pianist Richard Bonynge on 16 October 1954. Their son, Adam, was born in 1956. Bonynge gradually convinced her that Wagner might not be her Fach, and that since she could produce high notes and coloratura with great ease, she should perhaps explore the bel canto repertoire. She eventually settled in this Fach, spending most of her career singing dramatic coloratura soprano.
In 1957, she appeared in Handel's Alcina with the Handel Opera Society, and sang selections from Donizetti's Emilia di Liverpool in a radio broadcast. The following year she sang Donna Anna in Don Giovanni in Vancouver.
In 1959, Sutherland was invited to sing Lucia di Lammermoor at the Royal Opera House in a production conducted by Tullio Serafin and staged by Franco Zeffirelli. The role of Edgardo was sung by her fellow Australian Kenneth Neate, who had replaced the scheduled tenor at short notice.[9] In 1960, she recorded the album The Art of the Prima Donna: the double LP set won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance – Vocal Soloist in 1962. The album was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia registry in 2011.[10]
Sutherland sang Lucia to great acclaim in Paris in 1960 and, in 1961, at La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera. For her Met performance of Lucia di Lammermoor, standees began lining up at 7:30 that morning. Her singing of the Mad Scene drew a 12-minute ovation.[11] In 1960 she sang AlcinaatLa Fenice. Sutherland would soon be praised as La Stupenda in newspapers around the world.[1] Later that year (1960), Sutherland sang Alcina at the Dallas Opera, with which she made her US debut.
Her Metropolitan Opera debut took place on 26 November 1961, when she sang Lucia. After a total of 223 performances in a number of different operas,[12] her last appearance there was a concert on 12 March 1989.[13] During the 1978–82 period her relationship with the Met deteriorated when Sutherland had to decline the role of Constanze in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, more than a year before the rehearsals were scheduled to start. The opera house management then declined to stage the operetta The Merry Widow especially for her, as requested; subsequently, she did not perform at the Met during that time at all, even though a production of Rossini's Semiramide had also been planned, but later she returned there to sing in other operas.[14]
During the 1960s, Sutherland added the heroines of bel canto to her repertoire: Violetta in Verdi's La traviata, Amina in Bellini's La sonnambula and Elvira in Bellini's I puritani in 1960; the title role in Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda in 1961; Marguerite de Valois in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots and the title role in Rossini's Semiramide in 1962; Norma in Bellini's Norma and Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare in 1963. In 1966 she added Marie in Donizetti's La fille du régiment.
In 1965, Sutherland toured Australia with the Sutherland-Williamson Opera Company. Accompanying her was a young tenor named Luciano Pavarotti.
During the 1970s, Sutherland strove to improve her diction, which had often been criticised,[5] and increase the expressiveness of her interpretations. She continued to add dramatic bel canto roles to her repertoire, such as Donizetti's Maria Stuarda and Lucrezia Borgia, as well as Massenet's Esclarmonde. With Pavarotti she made a studio-recording of Turandot in 1972 conducted by Zubin Mehta, though she never performed the role on stage.
Sutherland's early recordings show her to be possessed of a crystal-clear voice and excellent diction. However, by the early 1960s her voice lost some of this clarity in the middle register, and she often came under fire for having unclear diction. Some have attributed this to sinus surgery; however, her major sinus surgery was done in 1959, immediately after her breakthrough Lucia at Covent Garden.[15] In fact, her first commercial recording of the first and final scene of Lucia reveals her voice and diction to be just as clear as prior to the sinus procedure. Her husband Richard Bonynge stated in an interview that her "mushy diction" occurred while striving to achieve perfect legato. According to him, it is because she earlier had a very Germanic "un-legato" way of singing.[16]
During the 1980s, Sutherland added Anna Bolena, Amalia in I masnadieri, and Adriana Lecouvreur to her repertoire, and repeated Esclarmonde at the Royal Opera House performances in November and December 1983. Her last full-length dramatic performance was as Marguerite de Valois (Les Huguenots) at the Sydney Opera House in 1990, at the age of 63, where she sang Home Sweet Home for her encore.[17] Her last public appearance, however, took place in a gala performance of Die Fledermaus on New Year's Eve, 1990, at Covent Garden, where she was accompanied by her colleagues Luciano Pavarotti and the mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne. According to her own words, given in an interview with The Guardian newspaper in 2002,[18] her biggest achievement was to sing the title role in Esclarmonde. She considered those performances and recordings her best.
After retirement, Sutherland made relatively few public appearances, preferring a quiet life at her home in Les Avants, Switzerland. One exception was her 1994 address at a lunch organised by Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, when Sutherland commented:『It also upsets me that it is such a damned job to get an Australian passport now – you have to go to be interviewed by a Chinese or an Indian. I'm not particularly racist, but I find it ludicrous.』Her criticism caused controversy.[19][20]
On 3 July 2008, she fell and broke both legs while gardening at her home in Switzerland.[21]
Sutherland had a leading role as Mother Rudd in the 1995 comedy film Dad and Dave: On Our Selection opposite Leo McKern and Geoffrey Rush.[22]
In 1997, she published an autobiography, A Prima Donna's Progress. It received mixed reviews for its literary merits.[23] Library Journal stated,
Opera superstar Dame Joan Sutherland gives an exhaustive account of her performing and recording career over four decades. From her early years in Australia and with the Covent Garden company in London, to her daunting schedule at most of the major opera houses of the world, we read endlessly of where, when, and with whom she sang which roles. We're shown a sensible woman and a hard-working artist, with a healthy ego tempered by a sense of humor that is often self-deprecating.[24]
The work includes a complete list of all her performances, with full cast lists.
Her official biography, Joan Sutherland: The Authorised Biography, published in February 1994, was written by Norma Major, wife of the then prime minister John Major.[25]
In 2002, she appeared at a dinner in London to accept the Royal Philharmonic Society's gold medal. She gave an interview to The Guardian in which she lamented the lack of technique in young opera singers and the dearth of good teachers.[18] By this time she was no longer giving master classes herself; when asked by Italian journalists in May 2007 why this was, she replied: "Because I'm 80 years old and I really don't want to have anything to do with opera any more, although I do sit on the juries of singing competitions."[26] The Cardiff Singer of the World competition was the one that Sutherland was most closely associated with after her retirement. She began her regular involvement with the event in 1993, serving on the jury five consecutive times and later, in 2003, becoming its patron.[27]
On 11 October 2010, Sutherland's family announced that she had died at her home at Les Avants in Switzerland the previous day of cardiopulmonary failure – "the heart just gave out...When it came to the point that she physically couldn't do anything, she didn't want to live any more. She wanted to go, she was happy to go, and in the end she died very, very peacefully."[28][29][30] Though she recovered from her fall in 2008, it led to more serious health problems.[31] A statement from her family said "She's had a long life and gave a lot of pleasure to a lot of people." Sutherland had requested a small, private funeral service.[28] Her funeral was held on 14 October and Opera Australia planned a tribute to her.[31] Artistic director of Opera Australia, Lyndon Terracini, said "We won't see her like again. She had a phenomenal range, size and quality of voice. We simply don't hear that any more."[31] Sutherland is survived by her husband, son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren.[32][33]
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said, "She was of course one of the great opera voices of the 20th century," adding that Sutherland showed a lot of "quintessential Australian values. She was described as down to earth despite her status as a diva. On behalf of all Australians I would like to extend my condolences to her husband Richard and son Adam and their extended family at this difficult time. I know many Australians will be reflecting on her life's work today."[34]
A State Memorial Service on 9 November 2010, arranged by Opera Australia, was held at the Sydney Opera House.[35] Speakers at the service were Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Australia; Professor Marie Bashir, the Governor of New South Wales; Moffatt Oxenbould, the former Artistic Director of Opera Australia; and Sutherland's son, Adam Bonynge. The service was broadcast live by both ABC1 television and ABC Classic FM (radio) and streamed globally by ABC News 24. Further memorial services were held in Westminster Abbey on 15 February 2011,[36] and in New York City on 24 May 2011, which was hosted by Marilyn Horne with an appearance by Richard Bonynge. In attendance were Sherrill Milnes, Norman Ayrton, Regina Resnik, and Spiro Malas.
External audio
Joan Sutherland as Donna Anna in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni with Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1961 – via Internet Archive
Described as "fresh," "silvery" and "bell-like" until 1963,[37] Joan Sutherland's voice later became "golden" and "warm";[3] music critic John Yohalem writes it was like "molten honey caressing the line".[37] In his book Voices, Singers and Critics, John Steane writes that "if the tonal spectrum ranges from bright to dark, Sutherland's place would be near the centre, which is no doubt another reason for her wide appeal."[3] According to John Yohalem, "Her lower register was a cello register, Stradivarius-hued."[37] Her voice was full and rounded even in her highest notes,[38] which were brilliant, but sometimes "slightly acid."[39]
In 1971, Time writes an article comparing Sutherland and Beverly Sills,
Originally bright and youthful-sounding, her voice darkened as she transformed herself into a coloratura. There is a suggestion of Callas' famous middle register in Sutherland's vocal center—a tone that sounds as if the singer were singing into the neck of a resonant bottle. Today the Sutherland voice towers like a natural wonder, unique as Niagara or Mount Everest. Sills' voice is made of more ordinary stuff; what she shares with Callas is an abandon in hurling herself into fiery emotional music and a willingness to sacrifice vocal beauty for dramatic effect. Sutherland deals in vocal velvet, Sills in emotional dynamite. Sutherland's voice is much larger, but its plush monochrome robs it of carrying power in dramatic moments. Sills' multicolored voice, though smaller, projects better and has a cutting edge that can slice through the largest orchestra and chorus. Sometimes, indeed, it verges on shrillness. [...] In slow, legato music, Sills has a superior sense of rhythm and clean attack to keep things moving; Sutherland's more flaccid beat and her style of gliding from note to note often turn song into somnolence. Sills' diction in English, French and Italian is superb; Sutherland's vocal placement produces mushy diction in any language, but makes possible an even more seamless beauty of tone than is available to Sills.[40]
Describing Sutherland's voice, John Yohalem writes:
On my personal color scale, which runs from a voluptuous red (Tebaldi) or blood-orange (Price) or purple (Caballé) or red-purple (Troyanos) to white-hot (Rysanek) or runny yellow-green (Sills), Sutherland is among the "blue" sopranos – which has nothing to do with "blues" in the pop sense of the term. (Ella Fitzgerald had a blue voice, but Billie Holiday had a blues voice, which is very different.) Diana Damrau is blue. Mirella Freni is blue-ish. Karita Mattila is ice blue. Régine Crespin was deep blue shading to violet. Sutherland was true blue (like the Garter ribbon). There is a coolness here that can take on the passion in the music but does not inject passion where the music lacks it, could possibly use it.[37]
External audio
Joan Sutherland as Elvira in Vincenzo Bellini's opera I puritani with Richard Bonynge conducting the London Symphony Orchestra with Luciano Pavarotti as Arturo in 1974 – via Internet Archive
Although she is generally described as a dramatic coloratura soprano, "categorizing Sutherland's voice has always been extremely difficult, both the size and the sound present definitional problems [...] Aside from singing some roles popular among coloratura sopranos, Sutherland's voice could not be more different."[3]
In a 1961 profile in The New York Times Magazine, Sutherland said she initially had "a big rather wild voice" that was not heavy enough for Wagner, although she did not realise this until she heard "Wagner sung as it should be."[11]
Regarding the size of Sutherland's voice, Opera Britannia praise "a voice of truly heroic dimensions singing bel canto. It is doubtful if any soprano in this repertoire has fielded quite so much power and tone as Dame Joan, and this includes Callas and Tetrazzini. The contrast with other sopranos who sing the same roles is appropriately enough stupendous, with rival prima donnas producing small pin points of sound as compared to Sutherland's seemingly endless cascades of full tone."[3] In 1972, music critic Winthrop Sargeant describes her voice "as large as that of a top-ranking Wagnerian soprano" in The New Yorker.[41] French soprano Natalie Dessay states, "She had a huge, huge voice and she was able to lighten suddenly and to take this quick coloratura and she had also the top high notes like a coloratura soprano but with a big, huge voice, which is very rare."[42]
Sutherland's vocal range extended from G below the staff (G3)[11] to high F (F6), or high F-sharp (F♯6), although she never sang this last note in a public performance.[3][43]
During her career and after, Sutherland received many honours and awards. She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1961 Birthday Honours.[44] That year she was named the Australian of the Year.[45] Sutherland is a Distinguished Member of the Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity.[46]
In the 1975 Queen's Birthday Honours, she was in the first group of people to be named Companions of the Order of Australia (AC) (the order had been created only in February 1975).[47] She was elevated within the Order of the British Empire from Commander to Dame Commander (DBE) in the 1979 New Year Honours.[48]
On 29 November 1991, the Queen bestowed on Sutherland the Order of Merit (OM).[49]
In 1992 Sutherland was a founding patron and active supporter of the Tait Memorial Trust in London. A charity established by Isla Baring OAM, the daughter of Sir Frank Tait of J. C. Williamson's to support young Australian performing artists in the UK.[50] Sir Frank Tait was the Australian impresario who created and managed the Sutherland-Williamson tour of Australia in 1965.[51]
Sutherland House and the Dame Joan Sutherland Centre, both at St Catherine's School, Waverley, and the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre (JSPAC), Penrith, are all named in her honour.[52]
John Paul College, a leading private school in Queensland, Australia, dedicated its newly established facility the Dame Joan Sutherland Music Centre in 1991. Sutherland visited the centre for its opening and again in 1996.
She received the Lifetime Contribution Award in 2001 Echo Klassik.[53] In January 2004 she received the Australia Post Australian Legends Award which honours Australians who have contributed to the Australian identity and culture. Two stamps featuring Joan Sutherland were issued on Australia Day 2004 to mark the award. Later in 2004, she received a Kennedy Center Honor for her outstanding achievement throughout her career.
On 22 May 2007, the year of the centenary of the birth of soprano Lina Pagliughi, she received the award La Siòla d'Oro at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna.[54]
In 2012, Sutherland was voted into the first Hall of Fame of the magazine Gramophone.[55]
Sutherland performed live the following complete roles.[56]
First performance
Composer
Work
Role
House
Conductor
Director
Remarks
20 June 1947
Galatea
Eastwood Masonic Hall, Sydney
Concert performance
30 August 1947
Dido
Lyceum Club, Sydney
Concert performance
15 July 1950
Handel
Dalila and Israelite woman
Concert performance; Sutherland made her professional role debut as the Israelite woman on 14 October 1958
9 July 1951
Judith
Judith
Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Goossens
Sutherland's first complete staged opera
16 July 1952
Giorgetta
Parry Theatre, RCM
Peter Rice/Pauline Elliot
28 October 1952
First lady
ROH, Covent Garden
Messel
Sutherland's professional debut
3 November 1952
High Priestess
ROH, Covent Garden
Cruddas
8 November 1952
Clotilde
ROH, Covent Garden
Barlow
29 December 1952
Verdi
Amelia
ROH, Covent Garden
Pritchard
Barlow/Stone
Sutherland's first leading role
24 February 1953
Mozart
Countess Almaviva
ROH tour, Edinburgh
J Gibson
Gerard
13 May 1953
Overseer
ROH, Covent Garden
Lambert
11 August 1953
Lady Rich
ROH tour, Bulawayo
19 October 1953
Helmwige
ROH, Covent Garden
Pemberton
2 November 1953
Frasquita
ROH, Covent Garden
Pritchard
4 February 1954
Verdi
Aida
Aida
ROH, Covent Garden
E Young
Cruddas
23 March 1954
Agathe
ROH, Covent Garden
Furse
30 April 1954
Lucinda
BBC radio broadcast
27 May 1954
Wagner
Woglinde and Woodbird
ROH, Covent Garden
Stiedry
Hurry
Sutherland also sang the role of Helmwige, which she had sung previously; the other dates of the cycle were 2, 8, and 17 June
17 November 1954
Antonia
ROH, Covent Garden
Downes
Wakhévitch
27 January 1955
Jenifer
ROH, Covent Garden
Pritchard
Hepworth
World premiere; Sutherland created the role
28 February 1955
Offenbach
Les contes d'Hoffmann
Giulietta
ROH tour, Glasgow
Downes
Wakhévitch
19 June 1955
Offenbach
Les contes d'Hoffmann
Olympia
ROH, Covent Garden
Downes
Wakhévitch
30 September 1955
Weber
Euryanthe
Stiedry
BBC radio broadcast
30 October 1955
Bizet
Carmen
Micaela
ROH, Covent Garden
Downes
Wakhévitch
11 March 1956
Mozart
Vitellia
Pritchard
BBC radio broadcast
10 November 1956
Mozart
The Magic Flute
Pamina
ROH, Covent Garden
J Gibson
Messel
28 January 1957
Wagner
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Eva
ROH, Covent Garden
Wakhévitch
19 March 1957
Handel
Alcina
St Pancras Town Hall
8 June 1957
Verdi
Gilda
ROH, Covent Garden
Downes
Gellner
5 July 1957
Mozart
Mme Hertz
Rice
16 August 1957
Laodice
Appia
BBC radio broadcast
8 September 1957
Emilia
Pritchard
BBC radio broadcast
21 December 1957
Verdi
Desdemona
ROH, Covent Garden
Downes
Wakhévitch
16 January 1958
Mme Lidoine
ROH, Covent Garden
Kubelík
Wakhévitch
24 May 1958
Applausus Musicus
Temperantia
Newstone
BBC radio broadcast
26 July 1958
Mozart
Donna Anna
17 February 1959
Donizetti
Lucia
ROH, Covent Garden
This performance marked the beginning of Sutherland's international career
24 June 1959
Handel
Rodelinda
Farncombe
Pidcock
8 January 1960
Verdi
Violetta Valéry
ROH, Covent Garden
Fedorovitch
24 May 1960
Bellini
Elvira
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Gui
Heeley
19 October 1960
Bellini
Amina
ROH, Covent Garden
Serafin
Sanjust
21 February 1961
Bellini
Beatrice
Concert performance; Sutherland first performed this role on stage on 10 May 1961
4 January 1962
Mozart
The Magic Flute
The Queen of the Night
ROH, Covent Garden
Eisler
28 May 1962
Maguerite de Valois
Nicola Benois
17 December 1962
Semiramide
La Scala
20 June 1963
Handel
Cleopatra
Sadler's Wells Theatre
Farncombe
Warre
17 October 1963
Bellini
Norma
Norma
Vancouver Opera
McLance/Mess
9 March 1965
Marguerite
Bonynge
Rome/Brooks van Horne
2 June 1966
Donizetti
Marie
ROH, Covent Garden
Bonynge
Anni/Escoffier
10 April 1967
Lakmé
Bonynge
21 May 1967
Haydn
Euridice
Bonynge
Ludwig
12 November 1971
Donizetti
Maria Stuarda
Bonynge
Pizzi
26 October 1972
Donizetti
Lucrezia
Vancouver Opera
Bonynge
Varona
14 September 1973
J.Strauss II
Rosalinde
San Francisco Opera
Bonynge
23 October 1974
Esclarmonde
San Francisco Opera
Bonynge
Montressor
12 September 1975
Verdi
Leonora
San Francisco Opera
Bonynge
Hager/Skalicki
22 April 1976
Hanna Glavari
Vancouver Opera
Bonynge
Varona
16 July 1977
Puccini
Suor Angelica
Bonynge
Digby
23 September 1977
Massenet
Sita
Vancouver Opera
Bonynge
Mariani
4 July 1979
Mozart
Elettra
Sydney Opera House
Bonynge
Truscott
2 July 1980
Verdi
Amalia
Sydney Opera House
Bonynge
Lees/Stennett
22 May 1983
Adriana
Bonynge
O'Hearn/Mess
22 June 1984
Donizetti
Anna Bolena
Canadian Opera Company, Toronto
Bonynge
Pascoe/Stennett
4 October 1985
Ophélie
Canadian Opera Company, Toronto
Bonynge
Shalicki/Digby/Stennett
Recitals
Sutherland made various recital and lieder recordings, usually with Richard Bonynge, many of them originally double-LPs. Some are still available in CD-format.
In 2011 Decca re-released these recitals in a 23-CD set (Complete Decca Studio Recitals, Decca 4783243) comprising:
Opera recordings (non-exhaustive)
Video recordings
7 October 1994 Dame Joan Sutherland addressed a lunch organised by Australians for Constitutional Monarchy and said: I was brought up having a British passport and it upsets me that I don't have a British passport now ...; When I go to the post office to be interviewed by a Chinese or an Indian – I'm not particularly racist – but I find it ludicrous, when I've had a passport for 40 years.
Interviews
Obituaries
Biography
Opera
