# RIP Joan Sutherland



## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

From the news today:

"The family of Dame Joan Sutherland wishes to let all her friends and admirers know that she passed away very peacefully in the evening of Oct. 10 at her home in Switzerland after a long illness. 

Called "La Stupenda" by her Italian fans, Sutherland was acclaimed from her native Australia to North America and Europe for the wide range of roles she took on during a career that spanned four decades. But she was particularly praised for her singing of operas by Handel and 19th-century Italian composers.

Tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who joined with Marilyn Horne in Sutherland's farewell gala recital at Covent Garden on Dec. 31, 1990, called her the greatest coloratura soprano of all time."

Thank you for all the pleasure you gave us opera fans, Dame Sutherland, and rest in peace.


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## jflatter (Mar 31, 2010)

A great prsence who will be sorely missed!


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Thanks for posting this, Almaviva. Sad news indeed.

La Stupenda, signing off (from the title page of my copy of her autobiography):


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Every home should have this one. *STUNNING!*










RIP Joan and thanks for all the great music - we won't forget.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Every home should have this one. STUNNING!

Indeed! RIP


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

I am listening to this right now










Thank you for your beautiful voice


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

jhar26 said:


> Every home should have this one. *STUNNING!*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes that 1960 2CD collection is perhaps the greatest bel canto set you can buy, Sutherland was technically near her peak vocal ability and gives us truely dazzling colortura especially her trills and unbelievable top notes

Decca recently released an expanded 6CD collection that repeats much of the "prima donna" set and adds many more gems both before and after 1960, very cheap at Amazon USA sellers


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Sad news but I'm glad she led a long, interesting and fulfilling life.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Very sad news. But I thinks she had a good life and brought great pleasure to many people.

I used to go to school in Les Avants, the village where she (and Noel Coward in the next door chalet) lived in Switzerland, so I've seen her but never heard her sing.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

DarkAngel said:


> Yes that 1960 2CD collection is perhaps the greatest bel canto set you can buy, Sutherland was technically near her peak vocal ability and gives us truely dazzling colortura especially her trills and unbelievable top notes
> 
> Decca recently released an expanded 6CD collection that repeats much of the "prima donna" set and adds many more gems both before and after 1960, very cheap at Amazon USA sellers




*Listened to this twice today......*
First time to refresh my memory, was so great I had to run it through again, this is a legendary recital that literally defines the "art of the prima donna" young Joan in 1960 had a very dramatic daring colortura style back then that just knocks you out every time. The sound quality fortuantely is very good also, very sweet 3D sound to vocals like filling a large hall, Decca did everything right here.........

The extended Norma segment showcasing 1960 Sutherland in great studio sound is worth the price all by itself....

The 6CD set "art of Joan Sutherland" obviously has much more material over longer time period and is sperated into CDs by composer and also language.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Well, it's the end of an era - most of that generation of opera stars are now gone - Sutherland, Pavorotti, Callas. Some, like Christa Ludwig, are still with us. I'm not an opera fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I know that part of Sutherland's legacy was her in re-introducing listeners to previously neglected repertoire - such as Bellini & Donizetti. Part of the reason is that not many singers before her had the dazzling technique to perform stuff like that...


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## Herkku (Apr 18, 2010)

Thank God she recorded so much! I was thrilled to hear her Alcina in the beginning of my opera listening career, although it would make the old music purists feel faint. Try her Tornami a vagheggiar (it's not even Alcina's aria in the original, but who cares?!)!


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Herkku said:


> Thank God she recorded so much! I was thrilled to hear her Alcina in the beginning of my opera listening career, although it would make the old music purists feel faint. Try her Tornami a vagheggiar (it's not even Alcina's aria in the original, but who cares?!)!


Hey, nice to see you back. I enjoyed your Mozart 22 reviews and was wandering what had happened to you. I'm a new (but very active) user here.:tiphat:


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Great voice. Lots of respect.

But the funny thing is, I have only one humble recording of her in it! Handel's English oratorio _Athalia_ (she sang the title role). (Band was The Academy of Ancient Music/Christopher Hogwood).


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## classidaho (May 5, 2009)

and I humbly echo you all (RIP Joan)! This is one of my vinyl treasure that has just become even more so.......!


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Great voice. Lots of respect.
> 
> But the funny thing is, I have only one humble recording of her in it! Handel's English oratorio _Athalia_ (she sang the title role). (Band was The Academy of Ancient Music/Christopher Hogwood).


Funny that, that's the only one I have and i don't much like her in that.

But I've just checked a heap of Bel Canto out of the library today to rectify the situation!


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## Air (Jul 19, 2008)

RIP

Thank you for your music, you will live forever in the hearts of us bel canto opera fans


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## RonPrice (Aug 23, 2005)

*Joan Sutherland: Funeral Tomorrow--14/10/'10*

Tomorrow is the funeral of soprano Dame Joan Sutherland(1926-2010) whom some have called the operatic voice of the 20th century. Three years ago she said that she "did not want to have anything to do with opera anymore." Fair enough; she was 80 and had just broken both her legs! Readers of this prose-poem can google all sorts of words of encomium and very little opprobrium about her life. I can hardly add anything to what is known. I am not even an opera buff. I have not read her autobiography published, as it was, in 1997 two years before I finished my 30++year teaching career. Sutherland started to seriously study voice in 1944, the year I was born. Like all babies I, too, was seriously studying voice, of course, in quite a different sense.

Sutherland became a star in 1959 when she sang at the Royal Opera House. 1959 was a big year for me; I joined the Baha'i Faith that year at the age of 15. I could follow my life and Sutherland's to her death this week and to my own years of late adulthood and life on a pension here in Australia. But I shall take this prose-poem in a different direction; this quasi-eulogy on a person whose voice possessed a crystal-clarity, the finest of diction and was incredible, miraculous.2 The word 'opera' comes from the Latin and means 'work.' It was invented, writes art critic Kenneth Clark, in the seventeenth century and made into an art form by the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi(1517-1643). Opera houses were often the largest buildings in a town or city especially in Catholic countries. They came in when churches were going out, Clark continues.1-Ron Price with thanks to 1Kenneth Clark, Civilization, Penguin, NY, 1969, p. 169; and 2 "Joan Sutherland: 1926-2010," Andrew Patner: The View From Here, 11 October 2010.

People sit and listen to words
they do not understand and to 
a plot they do not know---such
an irrational entertainment; it's
a display of skill and the words
are sung because they are just
too silly, too subtle, too deeply
felt, or too revealing to be said.

There is a very real extension of
human feelings and faculties in a
world where the pursuit of love &
happiness, which had once been so
simple, is now very, very, complex.1

And, Joan, you gave us rock-solid 
technique, confidence without any
arrogance, a four-decade career & 
you became known, therefore, in a
bel canto style as…..La Stupenda!!

1 Kenneth Clark, op. cit., p. 170.

Ron Price
13 October 2010


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Watching this DVD now, 14 bel canto arias done on TV show set by young Joan from 1961 - 1968 (early ones in BW)......gets some help from Gedda & Gobbi for last three segments

Including a Tosca vissi d arte with Tito Gobbi, the later DVD operas from late 1970s and 1980s don't capture this amazing voice like these do and Joan looks much better here, nice addition to collection


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## RonPrice (Aug 23, 2005)

*More Reflections On Joan Sutherland*

I hardly knew you, Joan.
Opera has never been high
on my agenda..You did not
really get going until about
the time I got going back in
the '50s…& what a trip you
have had in the last 50 years!

While my own trip has been
taking its incremental story
step-by-step from early and 
middle adulthood to the late 
years and, who knows, I may 
even get to an old age as you 
did-surviving as you did to 
83!!Both of our careers came 
to an end in the 1990s and we
could enjoy final years with so 
much to reflect on, eh Joan???

1959 was quite a year for both
of us and there were other years 
as well in which we shared some
big events, but I was never in your 
league, Joan. You and your voice 
and that jaw were bigger than life 
while I slid so unobtrusively from 
country to country & town to town, 
school to school and marriage to….
marriage. I wish you well, Joan, as 
you continue your life in the Land of 
Lights so different than the lights you 
enjoyed on this earthly plain and your 
voice, Joan, will you have that voice, 
that eternal clear bel canto voice……
Praised as La Stupenda!!

Ron Price 
16 October 2010


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## OperaSaz (Feb 12, 2010)

She will be missed. My DVD of "Il trovatore" by Verdi, in which she plays Leonora beautifully, is possibly the most watched in my collection.

Would have loved to see her perform at the start of her career. Does anyone know if it is possible to obtain early recordings?


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

OperaSaz said:


> She will be missed. My DVD of "Il trovatore" by Verdi, in which she plays Leonora beautifully, is possibly the most watched in my collection.
> 
> Would have loved to see her perform at the start of her career. Does anyone know if it is possible to obtain early recordings?


I'm sure that when it comes to someone like Sutherland virtually everything she's ever recorded is available.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

jhar26 said:


> Every home should have this one. *STUNNING!*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yessssss! That was the first Sutherland I got!-- and when I heard her do Handel's "The Bright Seraphim"-- my jaw just dropped into an open mouth of ignorant wonder. Hail! Dame Joan!


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Last month I listened to "The Art of the Prima Donna" again, twice in one sitting. I agree that it's a must-have, at least for fans of Dame Joan.

A quotation in the CD booklet from an original review of one of her earliest records says it all: "She offers a radiance of voice and a search for the beauty of truth that are quite individual, and above all a joy in the art of singing." That was what Joan Sutherland was all about.

I think I'll go listen to the set again...


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> Last month I listened to "The Art of the Prima Donna" again, twice in one sitting. I agree that it's a must-have, at least for fans of Dame Joan.
> 
> A quotation in the CD booklet from an original review of one of her earliest records says it all: "She offers a radiance of voice and a search for the beauty of truth that are quite individual, and above all a joy in the art of singing." That was what Joan Sutherland was all about.
> 
> I think I'll go listen to the set again...



















La différence-- in timbre, in color, in legato, in trills, in control-- between Her Eminence and all the rest (at least in the stratospheric range)-- is just an impassable gulf. . . "Too good" is right Maria. Joannie is sui generis in the supreme.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Marschallin Blair said:


> View attachment 33306
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Yes, she was obviously born with unique vocal equipment. Her sound must have been due in large part to her physique (she was 5'9" and a very impressively built woman) and bone structure (she had big features, including that prominent, strong jaw). Of course, not everyone can sound like Sutherland (nor would we want everyone to); but certainly she was one of the vocal phenomena of our time.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> Yes, she was obviously born with unique vocal equipment. Her sound must have been due in large part to her physique (she was 5'9" and a very impressively built woman) and bone structure (she had big features, including that prominent, strong jaw). Of course, not everyone can sound like Sutherland (nor would we want everyone to); but certainly she was one of the vocal phenomena of our time.

















She certainly holds sway in my operatic court. All other bel canto singers-- however good, or <ahem!> 'dramatic'-- just stand upon a lower plane. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate Parisian preciosity and theatricality; in fact, I love it in those women who can convincingly pull it off-- but all guilded musical wreaths in bel canto go to La Stupenda.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Marschallin Blair said:


> View attachment 33380
> View attachment 33381
> 
> 
> She certainly holds sway in my operatic court. All other bel canto singers-- however good, or <ahem!> 'dramatic'-- just stand upon a lower plane. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate Parisian preciosity and theatricality; in fact, I love it in those women who can convincingly pull it off-- but all guilded musical wreaths in bel canto go to La Stupenda.


,

You know, I was listening to Sutherland's first NORMA recording recently and found her singing quite powerfully dramatic as well as beautiful, her diction not as bad as people generally say it was. (Sometimes I wonder if people who complain about singers' "poor diction" actually themselves know what the words are; I listened to her while reading the NORMA libretto and found I could mostly understand the words as she sang them.) One has also to keep in mind that a singer can have the most brilliant dramatic insights and the best pronunciation in the world, but if the singers' sound doesn't project -- _if the sound itself doesn't carry any depth or color or emotion_ -- then dramatic temperament, etc. is of little use. Many bel canto singers had better diction and were keener vocal actresses, but few had the striking purity of sound or the sheer vocal amplitude that Sutherland did. These qualities and more allowed Sutherland to bring off many memorable dramatic effects -- in LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, for instance.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I have Sutherlands performance of Turandot. The voice is really enormous as well as beautiful. Quite stunning!

Just wondered how she'd have fared in the heavier roles such as Sieglinde. In addition, it's a pity we didn't hear more of her with the really great conductors of her day instead of her husband - a fine musician but a second rate conductor.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> ,
> 
> You know, I was listening to Sutherland's first NORMA recording recently and found her singing quite powerfully dramatic as well as beautiful, her diction not as bad as people generally say it was. (Sometimes I wonder if people who complain about singers' "poor diction" actually themselves know what the words are; I listened to her while reading the NORMA libretto and found I could mostly understand the words as she sang them.) One has also to keep in mind that a singer can have the most brilliant dramatic insights and the best pronunciation in the world, but if the singers' sound doesn't project -- _if the sound itself doesn't carry any depth or color or emotion_ -- then dramatic temperament, etc. is of little use. Many bel canto singers had better diction and were keener vocal actresses, but few had the striking purity of sound or the sheer vocal amplitude that Sutherland did. These qualities and more allowed Sutherland to bring off many memorable dramatic effects -- in LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, for instance.











I don't know WHAT happened to Joannie in the, what?-- mid-to-late sixties? Her diction suddenly started getting sloppy and her legatos droopy-- like she was on quaaludes or something. That unfortunate aberration aside-- Sutherland in the late fifties, early sixties, and late sixties-to-early seventies is sans pareil for me. The duets with Horne, her Alcina, her Lucia, her Olympia--- far exceed anything I've heard in the bel canto genre (at least as far as the evidentiary record on CD goes) in technical virtuosity and just pure magisterial beauty.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

DavidA said:


> I have Sutherlands performance of Turandot. The voice is really enormous as well as beautiful. Quite stunning!
> 
> Just wondered how she'd have fared in the heavier roles such as Sieglinde. In addition, it's a pity we didn't hear more of her with the really great conductors of her day instead of her husband - a fine musician but a second rate conductor.











You NAILED it on the Turandot: Sutherland's voice is 'enormous' AND 'beautiful'-- unlike so many other would-be claimants to the Turandot Empyrean. . . Heavier roles?-- a la Wagner-- its not in the cards; it's just not her range. I've heard her Wagner and I was non-plussed. . . .Ha. Ha. Ha. . . and I A-DORE Sutherland.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Marschallin Blair said:


> View attachment 33418
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> You NAILED it on the Turandot: Sutherland's voice is 'enormous' AND 'beautiful'-- unlike so many other would-be claimants to the Turandot Empyrean. . . Heavier roles?-- a la Wagner-- its not in the cards; it's just not her range. I've heard her Wagner and I was non-plussed. . . .Ha. Ha. Ha. . . and I A-DORE Sutherland.


I know she recorded some Wagner but I've not heard it.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I heard her Wagner and the voice was big enough but recorded too late in her career. I have heard her Aida and it was very good. I would say she would have been a much better Verdi soprano than a Helden soprano, though the lighter Wagner roles would have vocally suited her well. The Kaiserin from Die Frau might have suited her voice well. I think in the long run, she was more spectacular as a coloratura than she would have been in Strauss, Verdi and Wagner as her exceptional high notes and coloratura distinguished her above everyone else with the exception of Callas, who was a very different singer really.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Yes, in Sutherland's 1970's recordings her singing is more rhythmically alert and her diction sharper.

DavidA: I don't know how to rate Richard Bonynge as a maestro, because I know very little about what makes a great operatic conductor. I gather from recordings that he was an excellent conductor of bel canto operas and of the more bel canto-like Verdi operas (that is to say, up thru middle-period Verdi). His first NORMA is a little "bouncy" and fast, so maybe one could say he lacked profundity. I wouldn't care to hear him in, say, Wagner or Puccini, but I don't think he conducted those composers anyway. What he does do, for me, is give the illusion that it's the singers, rather than the conductor, who are in charge. Probably this isn't a very sophistocated thing to say, but I like that effect.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> Yes, in Sutherland's 1970's recordings her singing is more rhythmically alert and her diction sharper.
> 
> DavidA: I don't know how to rate Richard Bonynge as a maestro, because I know very little about what makes a great operatic conductor. I gather from recordings that he was an excellent conductor of bel canto operas and of the more bel canto-like Verdi operas (that is to say, up thru middle-period Verdi). His first NORMA is a little "bouncy" and fast, so maybe one could say he lacked profundity. I wouldn't care to hear him in, say, Wagner or Puccini, but I don't think he conducted those composers anyway. What he does do, for me, is give the illusion that it's the singers, rather than the conductor, who are in charge. Probably this isn't a very sophistocated thing to say, but I like that effect.


I like Bonynge. . . where he's at; with bel canto and operetta. I saw him about six years or so do a Lucia at San Diego Opera and he was as good as ever in that niche. Like Karajan, and Kleiber-- he just lives for the singers. I like that. ;D


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Don't care for Bonynge much. To me, other conductors get much more out of the score than he does.
I have some of his recordings only because Decca recorded them COMPLETE.


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## Oreb (Aug 8, 2013)

A nice extract from John Lucas' biography of Reginald Goodall (repriented a couple of years back with the rather tacky title 'The Genius of Valhalla' and a pleasant, undemanding read):

_It looked at one point as though Sutherland might concentrate on German opera. The role of Sieglinde was mooted and Goodall was keen to coach her for it, but she turned it down. The Italian repertoire beckoned. 'I had all those extra notes at the top,' says Dame Joan, 'and it seemed a pity not to use them. Reggie was very disappointed…'_

It seems, however, that Joan's winning personality was even able to win over Goodall, who seems to have been a fairly prickly character, not coping well with disappointments:

_Goodall always retained an affection for Sutherland, though he did not care for her chosen repertoire._ … [He was once spotted at a performance of _La file du regiment_] _'Don't tell a soul I'm here,' whispered Goodall, 'but I rather like it … and I think she's terrific.'_

Meanwhile, let's not forget she was Solti's wood bird...


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE (7 November 1926 - 10 October 2010)


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Rogerx said:


> Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE (7 November 1926 - 10 October 2010)


That is worthy of her as a resting place. The statue is lovely. She had features that were meant for marble. If I were Bonynge I don't know how I'd feel about having a tomb waiting for me.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Seattleoperafan said:


> That is worthy of her as a resting place. The statue is lovely. She had features that were meant for marble. If I were Bonynge I don't know how I'd feel about having a tomb waiting for me.


Like the old aristocracy had the family vault


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

I hate you all. I jumped from my seat thinking for a second she was still alive.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Great singer. Dig this top note


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Does anyone know where the grave is? Switzerland?

N.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

The Conte said:


> Does anyone know where the grave is? Switzerland?
> 
> N.


 Cimetière de Clarens-Montreux
Montreux, District de la Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut, Vaud, Switzerland


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

It was Joan Sutherland's Art of the Prima Donna, more than any other recorded music, that started me down the lifelong path of being a singer. She changed my life.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

One of the first complete opera sets I had was her first Puritani on vinyl which a relative gave me because they didn't like it! I didn't realise at that stage that it was one of the few sets which actually do that opera justice (the others being Callas' and Sutherland's second recording - Caballe's studio attempt doesn't really convince me and there hasn't been anyone since who rises above 'canary' level for me).

I hope it enters Oropesa's rep, she would be perfect!

N.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

This just in . . . Joan Sutherland and Generalissimo Francisco Franco are still dead.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

^^

That SNL running gag was relatively unknown in Spain until three or four weeks ago. It went viral on twitter. Tomorrow Georg Solti will conduct _Un Ballo in Maschera_ in Salzburg upon the sad news of Karajan's doctors failure to bring him back to life.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Can we keep this serious please.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Rogerx said:


> Can we keep this serious please.


Still too soon?


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

(Deleted post.....)


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Joan always seem down-to-earth. She was once asked about being a primadonna and she replied that she was brought up on a farm and if you played the primadonna there you were sent to bed with no supper!


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

> You can listen to what everybody says, but the fact remains that you've got to get out there and do the thing yourself.


Joan Sutherland.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

These are my favorite Sutherland LP images. I think this is her most glorious gown and the close up is her best portrait.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

A friend is giving me his extensive collection of Joan Sutherland lp's!!!!!!!!!! I've heard vinyl sounds much better so I am going to buy a turntable for Xmas and see!!! It includes French Opera Gala as well as The Art of the Prima Donna!!


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