My God. Just hearing that huge sound rising higher and higher, and then soaring in cantilena forever...her breath control was a miracle. And the top notes that just get bigger, with no thinning of the sound. I just wonder if Bellini or Donizetti ever actually heard sounds like this. They say Pasta probably sounded something like Callas, judging from Stendhal's descriptions, but who is there that might have sounded like Sutherland, back in the early to mid-nineteenth century? I can't imagine.
@@jasonhurd4379… 3:21 in "Turandot mode" inside Il Puritani :D and she does not sing like this in all of her live Puritani... definitely not Jehny Lind whom Wagner despised because of her very thin sound and to whom Sutherland was often compared... also definitely not Pasta and Malibran who both had tremendous dark chocked chest register... indeed I don't think there is a description that parallels dame Joan's Voice in the 19th century
@@LohengrinO 'Turandot mode'...that's just what I was thinking! If Grob-Prandl had sung Bellini, it might have sounded something like this. I think you are correct: none of the singer's descriptions from the bel canto era sound anything like Sutherland. That's not to say singers like her didn't exist, but I think if they had, someone would have written about it. At the end of the eighteenth century Haydn mentioned a soprano whose voice was 'big as a house', but I doubt that meant anything more than what we might consider a medium-weight lyric, someone like Margaret Price or Katia Ricciarelli. Let's face it, singers in the eighteenth century, who sang only Händel, Hasse, Lampugnani, Vinci, Porpora and the Neapolitan composers, and in small houses at that, did not have the opportunity to develop Turandot- or Elektra-sized voices. I really doubt if such huge voices were ever known before Rosa Raisa, Eva Turner, Frida Leider and that lot. There just weren't the conditions to allow them to develop gargantuan vocal size back in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
What is most stunning about Sutherland, especially in this unparalleled performance (even for her standards), is that she sings with a titanic heft, power and thickness of sound, but it never sounds harsh, unruly or kind of unfinished as with some other big-voiced sopranos who venture in coloratura repertoire, especially in more lyrical cantilena like this one. With Sutherland it sounds unbelievably powerful, she conveys a lot of emotion through sheer power and richness of sound (and the way she uses it all, of course), but it's also amazingly refined, controlled, elegant singing, with not even the slighest hint of harshness, untasteful excesses or lack of control over the voice. It's all perfectly controlled, impeccably beautiful, the most gentle cantilena - yet almost Wagnerian in sound. Unbelievable.
This recording seems to me to capture Sutherland better than many, even studio recordings. I heard her at the Lyric in Chicago, the Met, and Covent Garden and this recording has the same sense of a voice so immense that the auditorium cannot contain it that I experienced in those houses.
YOou can feel that in her live bootleg recordings (my favorites!) where you actually hear how the sounds blend from afar and she always rises above all, even in Wagnerian operas where she sings offstage
I heard Dame at the Met Opera many times. I would agree hearing her in person was indescribable. I also me her backstage after the performances. She was the kindest person, and always was interested in what you had to say. One of a kind in many ways..
Huge. And Gorgeous. I sometimes find dramatic voices on occasion can lose some beauty in certain parts. Joan, Callas And Nilsson have some of the greatest high notes I ever heard
I was lucky enough to have the chance to hear her live twice. It confirmed something for me. Her stinging on studio recordings was beautiful and very moving, BUT they never gave a real sense of what her voice was like live. Live her voice had a power and presence that studio recordings just couldn't show. Thank you for sharing this. It is breathtaking.
I had a different impression after seeing her onstage about a dozen times. I thought her Decca engineers (Kenneth Wilkinson) captured her voice exactly right. It’s rare that voices sound the same in the theater. Since some commenters are throwing around the names Nilsson and Sills, I heard them too, and their recordings don’t sound like them at all. Nilsson sounds too loud and shrill, while her voice was very warm in the theater. Sills sounds terrible on her recordings, but her voice was strong and full onstage. Sutherland luckily sounded very much like her recordings.
@@wotan10950 From what I heard and read, Decca wasn't able to capture the 1960 prime Sutherland sound. During the 1960's, Sutherland's highest notes had even more volume than Nilsson's. Although, Nilsson had a more piercing sound. Decca had to put Sutherland further back from the microphones, in the earlier recordings because she would cause the microphones to crack when she hits those legendary high notes.
I heard Dame Joan as Donna Anna st the Met in the late 70s. Her voice soared over everyone else's in the full ensembles by a large decibel lwvel. I was amazed at how huge this coloratura's voice was.
It’s interesting how Joan’s voice always sounds better in live recordings. The studio efforts post the early 60’s, invariably seem to emphasise her often mushy middle and lower registers
Incredibly, I had the opportunity to see her onstage in this opera in 1987. I was certain that she would transpose the music and simplify the embellishments, but she didn’t do anything of the sort. She sang everything as she always had, a little more effort for sure, but the theater exploded!
... Bella ed inconfondibile la voce di Dame Joan Sutherland!! É impossibile sollevare critiche al riguardo...c'è tutto un fondo di meravigliosa armonia... e lei spicca in maniera grandiosa come un dardo lucente e trapassa il cuore imprimendo un senso di esaltante beatitudine.!!! Stasera ti chiamerò anziché caro.. carissimo Lohengrin0, hai posto un bellissimo spezzone da Oscar!! Ciao.. ciao Elsa.
in general when she starts climbing EVERYBODY disappears... and when she attacks u can actually hear her cords which is so rare for Sutherland to push like that... and regarding the top note, it is higher than Turandot's tessitura... so, for a few seconds she sings in Turandot mode notes higher than Turandot's (like in one of her live Esclarmondes where she sings the entire opera in Turandot mode)
Lohengrin O! I was just wondering when you will post another clip of the woman who caused me to pursue music due to the beauty of her singing. Am so glad to have heard this and so many other clips of other artistes that have graced the lyric stage....
@@LohengrinO The monster that unleashes when Sutherland executes anything higher than a C6.. It is a very wild monster, that if not careful might put you in a musical trance
@@NLidar Seriously, has there ever been another soprano with such a huge extreme top register? Supposedly Nilsson sang the Queen of Night's Vengeance aria in her dressing room after a Götterdämmerung matinee, but those are all staccati, not sustained. I guess Callas' top register was as big as Sutherland's, but Joan's top notes were steadier, at least in her younger days.
You always find the most amazing clips of singers. Thanks for the job. The voice just soars over everything here, with no effort al all. The line is impecable. I think it´s one of her best performances of anything. What year is this from?
for me the performance that truly shows Sutherland was a huge dramatic coloratura is this: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zJctl_9em5o.html (I don't remember the year)
@@LohengrinO Same for me. I think that Esclarmonde is her best performance. Callas has her Armida, Joan her Esclarmonde. I think those two are the best showcases of the two non human supersingers haha. That San Francisco Opera has something though, I don´t know if her voice recorded better there or what, but her Norma there also sounds better and bigger than her other Normas, even the low notes.
I have a feeling there were huge voices in the 19th century. I was thinking of Henriette Meric-Lalande, a very high soprano, I think Bellini wrote La Straniera for her, also possible Capuleti and Pirata, and Donizetti wrote Lucrezia Borgia for her. Then there was Therese Tietiens, a noted Lucrezia who was said to have had a gigantic voice. I'm not sure about Patti or Melba, both noted Lucias and Violettas
@@thomasdahlen8533 now there don't be harsh.. Sills had a little too much vibrato and not a wonderful colour but listent to her handel, she was a great technician.. Joan Sutherland was probably the most impressive natural voice of alll time and deserved all the acclaim for the beauty and amazing technical ablility her voice possessed but she did have an underlying whoofing sound especially in the middle low range of her voice which made the phrase sound a little depressed and lacking in passion and above all which made her words unintelligible
Not for me, high notes are good but she had a poor mid register and completely underdeveloped /non existent chest voice. Deep low notes, not sung as "ingolato" are fondamental in bel canto, no chest voice no belcanto, it's as simple as that. Whoever wants to sing belcanto has to have a great chest voice, if not they should sing something else. Non Italian composers used other stiles.
Would love to know when this was recorded.. I'm guess it was early 60's before she her operation not sure whether it was tonsils or sinuses... The way I would describe Dame Joan Sutherlands voice is very simple.. Joan never strained or screamed to reach a note.. She had the ability to sing the note unlike a few other opera singer who screamed and made some dam awful sounds they were harsh very ugly.. The only other singer who had this ability was Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.. Putting it very simply There voices were like honey they sung beautifully You have other opera singers like Renata Tebald, Renata Scotta, Amelita Galli-Curci, Montserat Caballe, Maria Callas, Marjorie Lawrence, Leontyne Price,
