# The DRAMATIC side of Joan Sutherland



## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Joan's dramatic singing was immensely underrated and, at times, overshadowed by her bel canto work. as much as I love that side of her voice, people tend to ignore the dramatic power of the voice, to the point where several people say "she was a lyric coloratura, not a real dramatic coloratura".

to that, I simply say....oh really?


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

You are absolutely right,I salute you for it.:tiphat:


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

I honestly don't have strong opinions about Joan since I rarely listen to the operas in her repertoire. Can't say I'm much impressed by that Senta's Ballad though--she skates over the surfaces with little apparent understanding or ability to convey the drama of the piece, so it seems like pretty poor evidence for demonstrating her abilities as a dramatic soprano. Lovely voice, though.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

How about "Marten aller arten" from DIE ENTFUHRUNG by Mozart. More up her alley than Wagner:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Thanks for these enjoyable clips showing the extent of Sutherland's capabilities as a dramatic soprano. 

Loath as I am to wade once more into the swamp of defining the indefinable - i.e. fachs - I feel the urge to point out that if the term "dramatic coloratura" has any meaning, it must mean something more than a coloratura soprano with a large voice. No question, Sutherland was capable of making a dramatic effect by emitting tones of great power and brilliance. But we should also note that those tones were not capable of much variety of color, that they lost progressively their force and brilliance from the middle of her range downward, that they never included anything that could rightly be called chest tones, and that they were not allied with an incisive diction capable of making words expressive. 

For these reasons, despite clearly good intentions and the ability occasionally to make a respectably "dramatic" effect, that word is not one that seems to me very descriptive of Sutherland's voice as a voice. Those who claim that she might have made an adequate effect in dramatic repertoire such as Wagner, Verdi and verismo, with their requirements for vocal body, dramatic thrust, and verbal clarity up and down the voice's full compass, are just engaged in wishful thinking. Her attempt at Senta's Ballad (above) illustrates her weaknesses, and her unsuitability for such roles, perfectly. I've always thought that she found the repertoire best suited to her strengths - basically, lyricism and coloratura - and that most of her excursions outside of bel canto are interesting at best.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Compare the second studio Norma with the first and you have you everything you need to know about Joan's dramatic singing. I wouldn't use 'coloratura to describe a voice type, an opera singer who doesn't have coloratura (that is flexibility) isn't a special voice type or 'fach', they aren't a complete singer.

I think Joan was basically a dramatic soprano, but she had enough vocal diversity to also be adept at lyric roles.

N.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Here is a wonderful dramatic Sutherland:


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Florestan said:


> Here is a wonderful dramatic Sutherland:


it's already in the OP


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Conte said:


> Compare the second studio Norma with the first and you have you everything you need to know about Joan's dramatic singing. I wouldn't use 'coloratura to describe a voice type, *an opera singer who doesn't have coloratura (that is flexibility) isn't a special voice type or 'fach', they aren't a complete singer.*
> 
> I think Joan was basically a dramatic soprano, but she had enough vocal diversity to also be adept at lyric roles.
> 
> N.


How many singers are "complete"? Was Sutherland, with her weak and dull low register and vague verbal articulation, a more complete singer than Flagstad, with her full and resonant column of sound seamlessly integrated from top to bottom, her superb projection of vowels and consonants in all languages, and her relative lack of flexibility? I think it makes more sense to judge a singer's "completeness" within certain boundaries, not the rigid boundaries of "fach," but of certain roughly defined kinds of voices suited to certain kinds of repertoire. I can think of few truly "complete" singers, capable of singing virtually anything within their range supremely well. Ponselle, Caruso, Horne, Callas in her prime, maybe a few others...?

As to coloratura, I agree that it isn't a voice type - I don't like to "type" voices at all beyond necessary convenience - but it's a legitimate qualifying term which may apply to singers of different vocal ranges and weights. Singers are called "coloratura" because they do that particular thing extraordinarily well and can be brilliantly effective in roles that require a lot of difficult passage work. Certain singers with very light, flexible voices are suited only to "songbird" sorts of roles, and "coloratura" almost constitutes a "type" in their case. Obviously Joan wasn't one of those!

As I said in the post above, I wouldn't call Sutherland a dramatic soprano - not only because of my distaste for such neat titles, though that title fits certain people well - but because I don't hear her as one of those people whom that title really fits: she has specific deficiencies which make her less well suited to highly dramatic repertoire (which she wisely steered clear of) than the size of her voice might lead one to expect. We can argue about that - but coloratura? Absolutely, in the highest degree. I see no need to tack on such limiting "fach" tags as "dramatic," "lyric," or any other, or to worry about what we call her.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Thanks for these enjoyable clips showing the extent of Sutherland's capabilities as a dramatic soprano.
> 
> Loath as I am to wade once more into the swamp of defining the indefinable - i.e. fachs - I feel the urge to point out that if the term "dramatic coloratura" has any meaning, it must mean something more than a coloratura soprano with a large voice. No question, Sutherland was capable of making a dramatic effect by emitting tones of great power and brilliance. But we should also note that those tones were not capable of much variety of color, that they lost progressively their force and brilliance from the middle of her range downward, that they never included anything that could rightly be called chest tones, and that they were not allied with an incisive diction capable of making words expressive.
> 
> For these reasons, despite clearly good intentions and the ability occasionally to make a respectably "dramatic" effect, that word is not one that seems to me very descriptive of Sutherland's voice as a voice. Those who claim that she might have made an adequate effect in dramatic repertoire such as Wagner, Verdi and verismo, with their requirements for vocal body, dramatic thrust, and verbal clarity up and down the voice's full compass, are just engaged in wishful thinking. I've always thought that she found the repertoire best suited to her strengths - basically, lyricism and coloratura - and that most of her excursions outside of bel canto are interesting at best.


....you asked for it 
this is one reason why I wish the "dramatic coloratura" fach was further segmented, as it can be used to describe roles with differing requirements.

1) a dramatic soprano with unusual coloratura ability and maybe a few extra notes on top. the dramatic soprano's strength in the lower and lower-middle registers is required, and the tone is generally darker and steelier.
example singers: Marisa Galvany, Ghena Dmitrova, Maria Callas
example roles: Lady Macbeth, Abigaille
we could arguably throw Norma into this grouping, but imo, it's kind of in a class all it's own, requiring tessitura shifts from light lyric soprano down to friggin dramatic mezzo and coloratura ability throughout the entire range.

2) a singer which is something of a hybrid between a full lyric soprano and coloratura soprano with a bit more dramatic bite. 
example singers: June Anderson, Mariella Devia, 
example roles: Donna Anna, Violetta, Armida, Semiramide

3) a voice with the weight of a spinto soprano but the agility and comfortable tessitura of a lyric coloratura. the vocal weight is dramatic and formidable, but without the steeliness of a spinto or dramatic soprano, and with a weaker lower register. generally has a full-but-bright, heroic timbre.
example singers: Edda Moser, Joan Sutherland
example roles: Esclarmonde, Queen of the Night**, Odabella
**ideally. it's generally sung by singers with way too little vocal weight
PS: on a controversial note, I would throw Rosa Raisa into the 3rd category as well. note only was she a very high dramatic soprano (she created the role of Turandot), but other records reveal she had coloratura abilities which would put bel canto leggieros to shame.



The Conte said:


> Compare the second studio Norma with the first and you have you everything you need to know about Joan's dramatic singing. I wouldn't use 'coloratura to describe a voice type, an opera singer who doesn't have coloratura (that is flexibility) isn't a special voice type or 'fach', they aren't a complete singer.
> I think Joan was basically a dramatic soprano, but she had enough vocal diversity to also be adept at lyric roles.
> N.


....sort of. two things are a bit off
1) all voices can sing coloratura, but not all voices have equal capacity for learning coloratura. some voices have more natural flexibility than others. if you listen to some of Joan's work with more extensive coloratura, I think it's safe to say it would be unfair to expect that level of speed and precision from, say, Astrid Varnay, Violetta Urmana or Helen Traubel 
2) coloratura soprano is not just about singing coloratura, but also a higher tessitura than, say, a lyric soprano
anyway, if we took away "coloratura" as a voice type, I would classify Joan Sutherland as a spinto soprano


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> it's already in the OP


Ah so it is, I must have overlooked it because right under the play button on that video it said Ocean, Oh Mighty Monster, so it looked like it was for that video. If I took more time to look it over I might have figured it out. Or if you put blank lines between each video they will be separated.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

You, Balalikaboy, are in the wrong field and the wrong century. The natural sciences in 1850 needed men with such a passion for classification: quiet, patient men who could spend days in the university library amid tables covered with case upon case of never-before-seen plants from distant climes; studious, dedicated men who could forget food, drink, sleep, time, their wives, and life itself as they laboriously and meticulously named and labeled genus upon genus, species upon species, subspecies upon subspecies, an endless procession of taxa with long compound Latin names - beautiful, multisyllabic names, names which would fill volume after volume, to be studied by other minds as discriminating as your own, and then, as the generations passed, to sit collecting dust on the shelves of university classrooms: proud, silent missives from an age now lost to memory but forever glorious in legend, an age when men of science were God, dividing the sheep (Ovis spp.) from the goats (Capra spp.) and everything from everything else.

An age when real men, dammit, knew how to fach.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

It is no secret that I often (but not always) agree with Woodduck and this is no exception, I see this constant slicing and dicing of the fach categories having long gotten past any usefulness that it may have. At the rate it is going, it won't be long before we have a separate category for each and every singer - and all with little regard for the composer's concept of what type of voice was needed. And before anyone attempts to challenge that statement, just consider whether the operatic world of the past even looked on voice types in the same, rather arbitrary categories that we now use. Please ... let's drop the entire faching subject.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> It is no secret that I often (but not always) agree with Woodduck and this is no exception, I see this constant slicing and dicing of the fach categories having long gotten past any usefulness that it may have. At the rate it is going, it won't be long before we have a separate category for each and every singer - and all with little regard for the composer's concept of what type of voice was needed. And before anyone attempts to challenge that statement, just consider whether the operatic world of the past even looked on voice types in the same, rather arbitrary categories that we now use. Please ... let's drop the entire faching subject.


Ah, Becca! You speak wisdom (especially the part about agreeing with me, even if not always - though I'm sure we can work that out). But you know the old saying: Balalaikas will be Balalaikas!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

What I really want to know is: was it her left side or her right side?


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I respectfully offer a different perspective on my goddess:



 . Listen to this dramatically powerful recitative from Alcina. Try this very involved performance of the trio from Norma late in her career towards the last of this clip.



 Sutherland could be dramatically effective when she wanted to be so. Soprano dramatico D' agilita I believe is the Italian term for her type of voice. Early Callas and Sutherland were orders of magnitude bigger in size than any of their peers in terms of bringing truly gigantic voices to roles such as Norma and Lucia that require voices of exceptional agility as well as the power of a dramatic soprano above high C. Ponselle and Farrell could sing this way without the huge C, D, and Eb notes at their disposal. Listener after listener to live performances of Sutherland attest to her having a gigantic voice that came at you from all around you while sitting in the house. Her D's and Eb's could rival Nilsson's high C's in volume... and that is saying a lot. She had chest notes but used them sparingly and it paid off. She had high D's in her 60's that were wonders of the world and to my ear were even more beautiful than when she was 30. Note not only the emotional involvement as well as the strong chest notes in this performance of Maria Stuarda live when she was 61.....61!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:



. Who, in the past 30 years could hit a D even remotely as fabulous or as gigantically as that!!! Notes like that could stagger one's belief in what one had just heard. Only early Maria could also bring that type of dramatic power to notes above the staff... and only for a limited number of years until shortly after her weight loss.One last note: Sutherland sang for over 30 years. After 40 her voice got noticeably bigger and darker in the middle of the voice, which is where one sings most of the time. It developed more of the color of a true dramatic soprano.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I respectfully offer a different perspective on my goddess:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you for posting this.:tiphat:


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Forgive me for belaboring a point, but if just for one role Sutherland deserves to be classified as a dramatic coloratura: Esclarmonde. To my knowledge she is the only person to successfully undertake this role in modern times. It is a wonderful opera, but the title character must not only sing coloratura but project the voice over a Wagnerian size orchestra, PLUS in one aria alone, sing 3 high D's FFFFFFFFFFFFFF. Who, other than Maria in her early prime, could successfully negotiate the demands of this role. Sill, Swenson, Moffo, Pons, Caballe, Damrau, Netrebko, Peters, Dimitrova??? None. Zero.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> How many singers are "complete"? Was Sutherland, with her weak and dull low register and vague verbal articulation, a more complete singer than Flagstad, with her full and resonant column of sound seamlessly integrated from top to bottom, her superb projection of vowels and consonants in all languages, and her relative lack of flexibility? I think it makes more sense to judge a singer's "completeness" within certain boundaries, not the rigid boundaries of "fach," but of certain roughly defined kinds of voices suited to certain kinds of repertoire. I can think of few truly "complete" singers, capable of singing virtually anything within their range supremely well. Ponselle, Caruso, Horne, Callas in her prime, maybe a few others...?


When I use the word 'complete' I don't mean a singer who can sing almost any role within their range. I am thinking of a technically complete singer, that is a singer who has achieved proficiency over all aspects of technique so that they can reach their potential. (Of course, a truly complete singer doesn't really exist in this sense.) In any case, using your Flagstad/Sutherland comparison, I find using the term 'dramatic coloratura' soprano to describe Sutherland as ridiculous as describing Flagstad as a 'dramatic diction' soprano.



Woodduck said:


> As to coloratura, I agree that it isn't a voice type - I don't like to "type" voices at all beyond necessary convenience - but it's a legitimate qualifying term which may apply to singers of different vocal ranges and weights. Singers are called "coloratura" because they do that particular thing extraordinarily well and can be brilliantly effective in roles that require a lot of difficult passage work. Certain singers with very light, flexible voices are suited only to "songbird" sorts of roles, and "coloratura" almost constitutes a "type" in their case. Obviously Joan wasn't one of those!


But are these singers only suited to these roles because such is the nature of their voices, or are they lacking in technique and that is limiting the roles that they can sing? I would argue that these "songbird" sopranos haven't fully co-ordinated the head voice muscles with the chest voice muscle group (essentially that they don't have a fully developed chest voice). In my opinion 'coloratura' is not a natural voice type, it's a way of excusing a lack of technique.



Woodduck said:


> As I said in the post above, I wouldn't call Sutherland a dramatic soprano - not only because of my distaste for such neat titles, though that title fits certain people well - but because I don't hear her as one of those people whom that title really fits: she has specific deficiencies which make her less well suited to highly dramatic repertoire (which she wisely steered clear of) than the size of her voice might lead one to expect. We can argue about that - but coloratura? Absolutely, in the highest degree. I see no need to tack on such limiting "fach" tags as "dramatic," "lyric," or any other, or to worry about what we call her.


What about soprano, mezzo, tenor etc. are these also limiting tags? It seems clear to me that different human beings have voices that differ in range between different people. These are natural and you can't choose to be a tenor rather than a baritone. You are either one or another (some people's voices develop as they get older and so they may move from one category to another (or have been assumed to be something they weren't). Whilst range is an undeniable factor when comparing different voices, so is weight of the voice (there are heavy voices and there are light voices). I think there is a voice type such as heavy voiced soprano and light voiced soprano and I use the standard shorthand of dramatic for the former and lyric for the later. So when I think of Sutherland as a dramatic soprano, I'm not thinking that means that she was particularly suitable for roles full of high drama, rather that she was wonderful Turandot (albeit in the studio) and I think would have made a fantastic Bruenhilde. We may disagree on this point and you may think she was more suited to lighter roles. However, that whether you choose to call her a 'lyric soprano' or a soprano with a big, yet light(ish) voice is a discussion over semantics rather than fach.

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> ....sort of. two things are a bit off
> 1) all voices can sing coloratura, but not all voices have equal capacity for learning coloratura. some voices have more natural flexibility than others. if you listen to some of Joan's work with more extensive coloratura, I think it's safe to say it would be unfair to expect that level of speed and precision from, say, Astrid Varnay, Violetta Urmana or Helen Traubel
> 2) coloratura soprano is not just about singing coloratura, but also a higher tessitura than, say, a lyric soprano
> anyway, if we took away "coloratura" as a voice type, I would classify Joan Sutherland as a spinto soprano


1) But again, is it that they "naturally" aren't flexible or that the arytenoid muscles haven't been worked as much as they could have been (or aren't being used correctly)? Do we know that Varnay, Urmana and Traubel don't/didn't have flexible voices?

2) Again it seems that 'lyric' is being used as an excuse for not having high notes, rather than as a natural category of the singing voice.

N.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Conte said:


> When I use the word 'complete' I don't mean a singer who can sing almost any role within their range. I am thinking of a technically complete singer, that is a singer who has achieved proficiency over all aspects of technique so that they can reach their potential. (Of course, a truly complete singer doesn't really exist in this sense.) In any case, using your Flagstad/Sutherland comparison, I find using the term 'dramatic coloratura' soprano to describe Sutherland as ridiculous as describing Flagstad as a 'dramatic diction' soprano.
> 
> But are these singers only suited to these roles because such is the nature of their voices, or are they lacking in technique and that is limiting the roles that they can sing? I would argue that these "songbird" sopranos haven't fully co-ordinated the head voice muscles with the chest voice muscle group (essentially that they don't have a fully developed chest voice). In my opinion 'coloratura' is not a natural voice type, it's a way of excusing a lack of technique.
> 
> ...


Really, doesn't all this terminological hairsplitting - including the term "fach" - just demonstrate its own arbitrariness? Obviously there are people most comfortable in certain voice ranges, and so we call them "sopranos," "mezzos," etc. Nobody argues with the convenience of that basic classification. All I argue with is the attempt to assign singers definitively to quasi-objective categories based on our own subjective sense of what "type" of voice they are, and the attempt to splinter these so-called "fachs" into finer and finer divisions that ultimately don't do justice to the individuality of any actual singer.

Recently we had a thread on singers someone decided were "indisputably" misclassified - never mind how they classified themselves - and now we have Joan Sutherland the "dramatic soprano," though she never called herself that and only flirted with the edges of what is normally considered dramatic soprano repertoire. Well, I really don't care who calls her what. I only point out that people generally called dramatic sopranos possess certain vocal and artistic characteristics, and that certain roles generally associated with these sopranos require them, ideally, to possess such characteristics. Sutherland's singing could no doubt exhibit some of these traits at times, with a bit of special effort on her part. But I've pointed out the traits which I think she lacked in sufficient strength to make me care to listen to her as Abigaille, Aida, Gioconda, Maddalena, Minnie, Tosca, Santuzza, Leonore, Eglantine, Senta, Sieglinde, Isolde, Kundry, Salome, Elektra, The Empress, the Dyer's Wife, or Lulu. I'm sure Sutherland could have negotiated (or negotiated with) any of these roles, but, for me, neither their vocal nor their temperamental requirements would have suited her well.

Who described Flagstad as a "dramatic diction soprano"? Nobody. She was a dramatic soprano in the sense that she possessed all the characteristics necessary to sing roles that make certain kinds of demands, and one of those demands - one of the most important, in fact - is sharp verbal articulation, the clear projection of words. To call a singer with vague diction "dramatic" is a contradiction, whatever her other qualities. Sutherland's diction, as we know, was clear enough early on, but at that point her voice was lighter and brighter in texture and obviously unsuited to the kinds of roles I list above. She herself wondered if she should sing Wagner until she heard the real thing and realized otherwise. She also worked a bit to remedy her enunciation later and might have been somewhat plausible in heavy parts, but neither her Senta's Ballad nor her Liebestod, both late recordings, are really convincing to me. She has to work too hard (and to my ear without success) to try to inject into her middle and low voice the kind of speaking attack and timbral ping that a real dramatic voice like Ponselle's or Farrell's possesses by nature. I simply can't imagine a really first-rate "Suicidio"or "Voi lo sapete O Mama" from her, much less Isolde's "Narrative and Curse" or Brunnhilde's "Immolation Scene."

I know others think otherwise, but of course we'll never get to hear the full reality. I'd say it's no loss, and that we already have Sutherland doing the sort of thing that suited her best, plus some miscellaneous stuff (like the Wagner arias) that didn't.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Really, doesn't all this terminological hairsplitting - including the term "fach" - just demonstrate its own arbitrariness? Obviously there are people most comfortable in certain voice ranges, and so we call them "sopranos," "mezzos," etc. Nobody argues with the convenience of that basic classification. All I argue with is the attempt to assign singers definitively to quasi-objective categories based on our own subjective sense of what "type" of voice they are, and the attempt to splinter these so-called "fachs" into finer and finer divisions that ultimately don't do justice to the individuality of any actual singer.
> 
> Recently we had a thread on singers someone decided were "indisputably" misclassified - never mind how they classified themselves - and now we have Joan Sutherland the "dramatic soprano," though she never called herself that and only flirted with the edges of what is normally considered dramatic soprano repertoire. Well, I really don't care who calls her what. I only point out that people generally called dramatic sopranos possess certain vocal and artistic characteristics, and that certain roles generally associated with these sopranos require them, ideally, to possess such characteristics. Sutherland's singing could no doubt exhibit some of these traits at times, with a bit of special effort on her part. But I've pointed out the traits which I think she lacked in sufficient strength to make me care to listen to her as Abigaille, Aida, Gioconda, Maddalena, Minnie, Tosca, Santuzza, Leonore, Eglantine, Senta, Sieglinde, Isolde, Kundry, Salome, Elektra, The Empress, the Dyer's Wife, or Lulu. I'm sure Sutherland could have negotiated (or negotiated with) any of these roles, but, for me, neither their vocal nor their temperamental requirements would have suited her well.
> 
> ...


Please read my posts again. I completely agree that over classification and categorisation of singing voices isn't helpful. I think that some categorisation is useful, but I am not sure where you draw the line, do you think 'tenor', 'mezzo' and 'bass' are limiting categorisations too?

I feel that it is useful to categorise to some extent to help singers understand where they should start in terms of studying repertoire. The two charateristics which are intinsic, natural parts of a voice AND which cannot be chosen are range and weight of voice. Diction, flexibility of voice, intonation, depth of expression, musicality etc. are things that somebody can choose to learn or gain and as they are not _natural_ limits that go with a voice I can't see the value of using them (AND neither can you, we agree here).

Reflecting on Sutherland's voice (and other voices past and present) I have come to the conclusion that she was a soprano with a medium weight voice (both dramatic and lyric? Or neither dramatic nor lyric?). Therefore suited to some heavy parts (Norma, Turandot and I like her Wagner) and also perfect for some light parts (Gilda and Lakme). Sutherland is one of those singers who have something uniquely their own to bring to whatever they sing that it is worth hearing them in repertoire that may not be ideal for them. Or to put it another way, they may be "misclassified", but who gives a fach!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Conte said:


> Please read my posts again. I completely agree that over classification and categorisation of singing voices isn't helpful. I think that some categorisation is useful, but I am not sure where you draw the line, do you think 'tenor', 'mezzo' and 'bass' are limiting categorisations too?
> 
> I feel that it is useful to categorise to some extent to help singers understand where they should start in terms of studying repertoire. The two charateristics which are intinsic, natural parts of a voice AND which cannot be chosen are range and weight of voice. Diction, flexibility of voice, intonation, depth of expression, musicality etc. are things that somebody can choose to learn or gain and as they are not _natural_ limits that go with a voice I can't see the value of using them (AND neither can you, we agree here).
> 
> *Reflecting on Sutherland's voice (and other voices past and present) I have come to the conclusion that she was a soprano with a medium weight voice (both dramatic and lyric? Or neither dramatic nor lyric?). Therefore suited to some heavy parts (Norma, Turandot and I like her Wagner) and also perfect for some light parts (Gilda and Lakme)*. Sutherland is one of those singers who have something uniquely their own to bring to whatever they sing that it is worth hearing them in repertoire that may not be ideal for them. Or to put it another way, they may be "misclassified", but who gives a fach!


That's a description of Sutherland's voice I (basically) can't quarrel with. I'd characterize it a bit further as a medium weight voice with a powerful, brilliant upper range, a substantial midrange, a lower range without much body or color, a weakish and dull-sounding chest voice, and great flexibility. It's a mix of traits that enabled her to handle well a variety of repertoire, but made her less effective in some other things (I'm thinking of some Verdi now). I think Turandot was the ideal excursion into true dramatic soprano repertoire, since it lies almost consistently in the best part of her voice and calls for the upper-range brilliance and power she had in abundance.

I have to disagree that _range_ and _weight _(volume) are the only intrinsic characteristics of a voice or natural limiting factors on what a singer can or should do. _Timbre_ may be less important than range and volume in making a singer more or less suitable for a part, but it isn't negligible. _Flexibility_ can be developed, true, but not to an unlimited degree; some voices are naturally "quick" and flexible, while others, I believe, will never have equal flexibility with any amount of practice. But I also believe it's assuming too much to think that any singer can develop qualities of expression suitable for any kind of music or the dramatic requirements of any role, and this is a matter of the mechanics of a singer's vocal production as well as of temperament. The individuality of singers' psychological and physical makeup are too complex to allow us to assume that all singers can meet platonic ideals of technique, musicality, style, and drama. There are any number of roles that singers have the range and volume to sing, but in which they will simply not, for other reasons, be convincing. Of course that needn't stop them from trying, but it might stop me from listening!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

If anyone does not regard Sutherland as a dramatic soprano then I would advise them to listen to her performance in Turandot. The voice is huge. Why is she concentrated on other repertory for most of her stage career, this at least proves how powerful the voice actually was.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I respectfully offer a different perspective on my goddess:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


personally, I think Sutherland would have had more success in her later career had she changed up her repertoire and started singing roles like Turandot or various lighter Wagner rep (Senta, Elisabeth, Elsa, etc)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Maybe she should have kept some German opera in her repertoire from the start. Here's a beautiful clip of an English-language _Meistersinger_ at Covent Garden in 1957 with Sutherland excellent as Eva.






A suitable vocal weight, good diction, a clean attack and a firm line, no mouthing or mooning or intrusive vibrato... The lighter Wagner parts would have suited her, and perhaps been a good defense against certain mannerisms - cloudy diction and swoony, swoopy phrasing - which hubby Richard seems to have allowed her, or instilled in her. By the time she recorded Wagner in German, in 1978, the voice was certainly darker and fuller, but the incisive attack and firm tone of the early years had given way to mushiness and wobble. These problems could be less apparent amid the fast-moving fioriture of bel canto in which she shone, but in Wagner's intense, sustained phrases they are fully exposed, despite Bonynge's pushing the tempo to keep the line from sagging:






She's 52 here, not so very old for a singer; I heard Nilsson sing Isolde at 54 and her Liebestod was rock-solid and overwhelming after a night of singing (stronger, I think, than it was when she was young).

Perhaps a bit more experience with the music would have helped here. As it is, this is a respectable effort, but doesn't suggest to me that turning to Wagner would have been a great late-career move.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> What I really want to know is: was it her left side or her right side?


It was actually the top side: she said that her high notes were not produced from her mask like the rest of her voice but shot out the top of her head.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Maybe she should have kept some German opera in her repertoire from the start. Here's a beautiful clip of an English-language _Meistersinger_ at Covent Garden in 1957 with Sutherland excellent as Eva.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Interestingly, after he conducted her in *Lucia di Lammermoor* at Covent Garden in 1959, Serafin thought she should have gone on to sing Lady Macbeth. Listening to the incisive attack she has in the live recording made at one of the performances, and the clear diction, it might have suited her well.

The mushy diction and moony _portamenti_ crept in with Bonygne's increasing influence on her career.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

DavidA said:


> If anyone does not regard Sutherland as a dramatic soprano then I would advise them to listen to her performance in Turandot. The voice is huge. Why is she concentrated on other repertory for most of her stage career, this at least proves how powerful the voice actually was.


However we have no idea how she would have sounded in the role in the theatre. Admittedly it _sounds_ as if it might have worked, but she never attempted it, and, like Margaret Price's excellent Isolde, it exists only as a gramophone creation. Maybe she knew something the rest of us didn't.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

GregMitchell said:


> However we have no idea how she would have sounded in the role in the theatre. Admittedly it _sounds_ as if it might have worked, but she never attempted it, and, like Margaret Price's excellent Isolde, it exists only as a gramophone creation. Maybe she knew something the rest of us didn't.


 Regarding Turandot: plenty of people have attested that in live roles like Lucia and Norma Sutherland's voice filled the opera house with an enveloping sound. You can hear on live recordings how her high notes ( Turandot...it is all about this) rode up over the orchestra and chorus on plenty of occasions. Covent Garden, not a slouchy house, put it's faith that her voice would be big enough to do justice to Aida, which says volumes about her not being your typical coloratura in volume. Here is a quote from a very respected contemporary... Matthew Horner, a vice president at IMG Artists who manages the careers of numerous opera singers, had a similar experience in hearing Sutherland. "Even at the end of her life, the voice was so overwhelming," he said. "It's hard to gain from YouTube or recordings just how big the voice was. It had all this height but it moved so incredibly that you were shocked when you heard it live just how big it was." 
Here is a quote from one of the greatest singers of all time about Sutherland having a big voice:Marilyn Horne, the American mezzo-soprano, Monday reminisced about Ms. Sutherland, with whom she appeared frequently throughout her career. "You have to know that it was an enormously big voice," Horne said. "In my entire life there were only a couple" of voices like that, she added. "When she sang and I was sitting in the hall, her voice went straight to my ear, as if she were singing in my ear." Convinced now????


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I will grant you: John Culshaw was wrong to cast big Joan as the Woodbird, gorgeously though she chirps. Siegfried would not want a bird of that size flying over his windshield (this is regietheater now). Besides, I'm not sure that in her case the dragon's blood would do what it was supposed to do, and I'll bet you anything that Siegfried studied the libretto beforehand. Maybe instead of twittering away in Schwa-hili she should have just flown up the mountain with him and challenged Birgit to a high C duel. (To be fair, Culshaw seems to have located the bird somewhere down the hall. Who could be understood from there?)


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Regarding Turandot: plenty of people have attested that in live roles like Lucia and Norma Sutherland's voice filled the opera house with an enveloping sound. You can hear on live recordings how her high notes ( Turandot...it is all about this) rode up over the orchestra and chorus on plenty of occasions. Covent Garden, not a slouchy house, put it's faith that her voice would be big enough to do justice to Aida, which says volumes about her not being your typical coloratura in volume. Here is a quote from a very respected contemporary... Matthew Horner, a vice president at IMG Artists who manages the careers of numerous opera singers, had a similar experience in hearing Sutherland. "Even at the end of her life, the voice was so overwhelming," he said. "It's hard to gain from YouTube or recordings just how big the voice was. It had all this height but it moved so incredibly that you were shocked when you heard it live just how big it was."
> Here is a quote from one of the greatest singers of all time about Sutherland having a big voice:Marilyn Horne, the American mezzo-soprano, Monday reminisced about Ms. Sutherland, with whom she appeared frequently throughout her career. "You have to know that it was an enormously big voice," Horne said. "In my entire life there were only a couple" of voices like that, she added. "When she sang and I was sitting in the hall, her voice went straight to my ear, as if she were singing in my ear." Convinced now????


I don't doubt the size of Sutherland's voice. Though I never heard her in the theatre, I have friends who did, and all of them said that recordings didn't really do it justice. Mind you, some of them also heard Nilsson in the flesh, and told me the size and penetration of that voice was something else!

That said, I am still not convinced that Turandot would have worked in the theatre for Sutherland. It requires as much sustained power in the middle voice as it does in the upper reaches, and I am just not sure it would have suited her so well. I love her recording of the role, and always have, but she still doesn't sound a natural for it to me, in the way that Nilsson does, or Eva Turner in what snippets we have. Or even Callas in those few tantalising glimpses we have of her singing it in 1949. Callas herself said she dropped the role as soon as she could, and she did so long before she lost all the weight, opining that "it's not very good for the voice, you know."

We might also be thankful that she never attempted it in the theatre. One can only conjecture, but, had she done so, would her career have lasted as long as it did. It seems to me our Joanie had a very good idea of what suited her and what didn't, and that, no doubt, was the secret to her longevity.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

GregMitchell said:


> I don't doubt the size of Sutherland's voice. Though I never heard her in the theatre, I have friends who did, and all of them said that recordings didn't really do it justice. Mind you, some of them also heard Nilsson in the flesh, and told me the size and penetration of that voice was something else!
> 
> That said, I am still not convinced that Turandot would have worked in the theatre for Sutherland. It requires as much sustained power in the middle voice as it does in the upper reaches, and I am just not sure it would have suited her so well. I love her recording of the role, and always have, but she still doesn't sound a natural for it to me, in the way that Nilsson does, or Eva Turner in what snippets we have. Or even Callas in those few tantalising glimpses we have of her singing it in 1949. Callas herself said she dropped the role as soon as she could, and she did so long before she lost all the weight, opining that "it's not very good for the voice, you know."
> 
> We might also be thankful that she never attempted it in the theatre. One can only conjecture, but, had she done so, would her career have lasted as long as it did. It seems to me our Joanie had a very good idea of what suited her and what didn't, and that, no doubt, was the secret to her longevity.


Greg, I can see your points on this as having merit. Her voice had incredible longevity because of the repertoire she and Richard chose for her to sing. I LOVE her Turandot on disc, but it is a real bitch of a role. I thought people were questioning the size of her instrument. She could have sung it in a theater but it probably would not have done her voice any good in the long run. Most of her roles were centered in the middle with spectacular excursions into the stratosphere. Turandot just stays up there. Nilsson said it was harder than Bruinhilde or Isolde even though it was a fraction of the length of the Wagner roles.


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> How many singers are "complete"? Was Sutherland, with her weak and dull low register and vague verbal articulation, a more complete singer than Flagstad, with her full and resonant column of sound seamlessly integrated from top to bottom, her superb projection of vowels and consonants in all languages, and her relative lack of flexibility? I think it makes more sense to judge a singer's "completeness" within certain boundaries, not the rigid boundaries of "fach," but of certain roughly defined kinds of voices suited to certain kinds of repertoire. I can think of few truly "complete" singers, capable of singing virtually anything within their range supremely well. Ponselle, Caruso, Horne, Callas in her prime, maybe a few others...?
> 
> As to coloratura, I agree that it isn't a voice type - I don't like to "type" voices at all beyond necessary convenience - but it's a legitimate qualifying term which may apply to singers of different vocal ranges and weights. Singers are called "coloratura" because they do that particular thing extraordinarily well and can be brilliantly effective in roles that require a lot of difficult passage work. Certain singers with very light, flexible voices are suited only to "songbird" sorts of roles, and "coloratura" almost constitutes a "type" in their case. Obviously Joan wasn't one of those!
> 
> As I said in the post above, I wouldn't call Sutherland a dramatic soprano - not only because of my distaste for such neat titles, though that title fits certain people well - but because I don't hear her as one of those people whom that title really fits: she has specific deficiencies which make her less well suited to highly dramatic repertoire (which she wisely steered clear of) than the size of her voice might lead one to expect. We can argue about that - but coloratura? Absolutely, in the highest degree. I see no need to tack on such limiting "fach" tags as "dramatic," "lyric," or any other, or to worry about what we call her.


I too often agree with Woodduck, but not here. Not at all. I wonder if your disdain for Sutherland flows from your championing Callas. Or Wagnerian sopranos from the 30s to 50s (such as Flagstad). It is possible to love them without denigrating Sutherland. Weak and dull lower register? For goodness sake!


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> personally, I think Sutherland would have had more success in her later career had she changed up her repertoire and started singing roles like Turandot or various lighter Wagner rep (Senta, Elisabeth, Elsa, etc)


Had more success? What do you mean? How are you measuring success? Do you think she was not esteemed in her later career? Even Woodduck would have to concede that she finished her career one of the most admired and popular sopranos alive, a singer who could sell out opera houses, and whose nickname (La Stupenda) gives some clue as to how she was perceived - even if he doesn't especially admire her. Who might you hold up as an exemplar of someone who was successful, if she was not?


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Greg, I can see your points on this as having merit. Her voice had incredible longevity because of the repertoire she and Richard chose for her to sing. I LOVE her Turandot on disc, but it is a real bitch of a role. I thought people were questioning the size of her instrument. She could have sung it in a theater but it probably would not have done her voice any good in the long run. Most of her roles were centered in the middle with spectacular excursions into the stratosphere. Turandot just stays up there. Nilsson said it was harder than Bruinhilde or Isolde even though it was a fraction of the length of the Wagner roles.


I had the good fortune to hear Sutherland live several times, including in the hideous cavern that was the Palais Theatre in Melbourne (before the State Theatre came along in the 1980s). I can certainly vouch for the size of her voice. And its extraordinary agility and security. I do concede, as I have before on this forum, that her diction could be uncertain.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

If we're saying Sutherland had a weak and dull lower register, then what are we going to say about many other sopranos? I do agree, however, that no singer has it all. Even the greats did not do everything. For example Nilsson was astounding but I've always found her somewhat one dimensional. (Mind you, that dimension is incredibly formidable!) I actually prefer Sutherland's Turandot to Nilsson's but that I know is a matter of personal taste.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> personally, I think Sutherland would have had more success in her later career had she changed up her repertoire and started singing roles like Turandot or various lighter Wagner rep (Senta, Elisabeth, Elsa, etc)


Oh, I don't know about that. John Steane (vocal expert, former "Gramophone" reviewer, and author of several books), who heard Sutherland live at Covent Garden numerous times, remarked that her voice was exceptionally big but was "not a voice for Wagner." Personally, I (having only heard her on recordings) think she was perfect for the bel canto roles she sang regularly and might have been rather dull in Wagner.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

If anyone thinks this:






is comparable to this:






or this:





 (who was Sabine Kalter?)

in phrasing, enunciation, color, thrust, and dramatic frisson, they're welcome to it.

Have real dramatic singers have become so rare that we've forgotten what they sound like?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> If anyone thinks this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The first clip took me to Daniele Gatti conducting the Parsifal Prelude and Good Friday Music at the 2012 Proms

The third clip is not viewable in the UK for some reason.

So I'm afraid I can't comment.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Steatopygous said:


> I too often agree with Woodduck, but not here. Not at all. I wonder if your disdain for Sutherland flows from your championing Callas. Or Wagnerian sopranos from the 30s to 50s (such as Flagstad). It is possible to love them without denigrating Sutherland. Weak and dull lower register? For goodness sake!


I _don't_ disdain Sutherland. I simply disagree, emphatically, with those who say she was a dramatic soprano. When I first heard her "Art of the Prima Donna" back in the '60s I loved it. I enjoy her early work, some of which is truly spectacular. And she could deliver some dramatic Baroque and bel canto arias very forcefully. Perhaps, had she not come under the influence of Richard Bonynge, she would have developed more in the direction of a dramatic or spinto soprano. I don't think that would have been the best thing for her voice, but it might have prevented her developing the familiar mannerisms - droopy, swoony phrasing and incomprehensible diction - which she could get away with in Bellini but which are just fatal in dramatic repertoire. A dramatic soprano needs more than decibels; she needs to be able to burn a phrase into us, drawing it out intensely from end to end, and make the words cut like knives. Sutherland's timbre, for all her power and brilliance on top, didn't have much edge to it; in a strange sense, it was too lovely - except toward the bottom, where it simply had little character. Yes, I find the lower part of her range quite colorless and inexpressive, and actually unattractive when she tried to be "dramatic" and put pressure on it. And of course there was an overall loss of brilliance and an encroaching wobble as she aged which, I think, further diminished her dramatic potential.

If I were forced to put her in a category, I'd call her a powerful lyric-coloratura with light-dramatic potential, best suited to the repertoire she mostly sang, i.e. Baroque through mid-19th-century Romantic opera and oratorio. Alcina, Donna Anna, Lucia, Violetta, and Elsa, yes. Medea, Leonore, Aida, Isolde and Minnie, no thanks.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> The first clip took me to Daniele Gatti conducting the Parsifal Prelude and Good Friday Music at the 2012 Proms
> 
> The third clip is not viewable in the UK for some reason.
> 
> So I'm afraid I can't comment.


Sorry. I've corrected the first link in post #39. It's Sutherland singing "Gerechter Gott" from _Rienzi._

Now, folks, listen to someone trying to sound like a dramatic soprano, compare to the other singers (who are mezzos, since the role of Adriano is usually sung by mezzos), and give me your honest opinion.


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> If anyone thinks this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Or between






and this:






It is interesting that the latter , a true dramatic soprano, had the agility of the same caliber with the former (one can even argue that Leider's shading and phrasing was more interesting):


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

silentio said:


> Or between
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That Liebestod of Leider's, much too fast (surely the old 78rpm side length problem) doesn't really show what she could do. You MUST hear her live at the Met in 1933, immersed in Isolde's final ecstasy. The sound is wretched, but this is beyond mere singing!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Frankly I think it's a bit pointless in comparing Sutherland in Wagner to some of the great sopranos who made Wagner a speciality. But like comparing them singng Bel Canto with Sutherland. The fact is that Sutherland specialised in other repertory. However people who actually heard her commented about the size of the voice, which was apparently huge.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Frankly I think it's a bit pointless in comparing Sutherland in Wagner to some of the great sopranos who made Wagner a speciality. But like coaring them singng Bel Canto with Sutherland. The fact is that Sutherland specialised in other repertory. However people who actually heard her cm enter about the size of the voice, which was apparently huge.


Hear, hear.:tiphat:


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Frankly I think it's a bit pointless in comparing Sutherland in Wagner to some of the great sopranos who made Wagner a speciality. But like comparing them singng Bel Canto with Sutherland. The fact is that Sutherland specialised in other repertory. However people who actually heard her commented about the size of the voice, which was apparently huge.


seconded.
additionally, there seems to be an assumption here that "dramatic" necessitates a strong lower register and comfort singing in a relatively low tessitura. many dramatic voices (Milnes, Warren and Moser come to mind immediately) specialize in high tessitura repertoire. a dramatic _coloratura_ soprano is not generally going to have the strength in the lower register of Gioconda, Brunnhilde or Ariadne.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> If I were forced to put her in a category, I'd call her a powerful lyric-coloratura with light-dramatic potential, best suited to the repertoire she mostly sang, i.e. Baroque through mid-19th-century Romantic opera and oratorio. Alcina, Donna Anna, Lucia, Violetta, and Elsa, yes. Medea, Leonore, Aida, Isolde and Minnie, no thanks.


...please listen to this and tell me if you hear lyric anything


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Hearing Sutherland's Turandot there is nothng 'light' about it when she lets forth!


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I _don't_ disdain Sutherland. I simply disagree, emphatically, with those who say she was a dramatic soprano. When I first heard her "Art of the Prima Donna" back in the '60s I loved it. I enjoy her early work, some of which is truly spectacular. And she could deliver some dramatic Baroque and bel canto arias very forcefully. Perhaps, had she not come under the influence of Richard Bonynge, she would have developed more in the direction of a dramatic or spinto soprano. I don't think that would have been the best thing for her voice, but it might have prevented her developing the familiar mannerisms - droopy, swoony phrasing and incomprehensible diction - which she could get away with in Bellini but which are just fatal in dramatic repertoire. A dramatic soprano needs more than decibels; she needs to be able to burn a phrase into us, drawing it out intensely from end to end, and make the words cut like knives. Sutherland's timbre, for all her power and brilliance on top, didn't have much edge to it; in a strange sense, it was too lovely - except toward the bottom, where it simply had little character. Yes, I find the lower part of her range quite colorless and inexpressive, and actually unattractive when she tried to be "dramatic" and put pressure on it. And of course there was an overall loss of brilliance and an encroaching wobble as she aged which, I think, further diminished her dramatic potential.
> 
> If I were forced to put her in a category, I'd call her a powerful lyric-coloratura with light-dramatic potential, best suited to the repertoire she mostly sang, i.e. Baroque through mid-19th-century Romantic opera and oratorio. Alcina, Donna Anna, Lucia, Violetta, and Elsa, yes. Medea, Leonore, Aida, Isolde and Minnie, no thanks.


Well you have certainly put your case articulately. I agree with DavidA, no point in comparing her in repertoire she was not equipped to sing and generally chose not to. I don't claim she could sing everything. So we agree at the far ends of the spectrum about her strengths and weaknesses; it's a matter of where we draw the line. You say no to Violetta. I think her Traviata with Pavarotti is almost unrivalled - I've never heard Parigi o cara so lovely. Perhaps we've found the line.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Frankly I think it's a bit pointless in comparing Sutherland in Wagner to some of the great sopranos who made Wagner a speciality. But like comparing them singng Bel Canto with Sutherland. The fact is that Sutherland specialised in other repertory. However people who actually heard her commented about the size of the voice, which was apparently huge.


Pointless? The point is obvious. When people state that Sutherland can be called a dramatic soprano, or could have been a dramatic soprano, and they assert that she could have been an effective Isolde or Brunnhilde, and we actually have a recording she made of Wagner selections, it's natural that comparisons will be made to actual dramatic sopranos who sang Wagner. It provides a needed perspective on the claims being made about her.

On the other hand, no one has claimed that, say, Kirsten Flagstad could have sung Norma. She was in fact offered the role at the Met and turned it down. She knew what she was good at. It's best that we all know what we're good at. Sutherland knew what she was good at too. It's too bad that people refuse to take her word for it and try to make her, posthumously, into something she wasn't. I think if she were here now and someone told her she should have sung Isolde, she would say, in her delightfully matter-of-fact way, "Tosh!"


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Steatopygous said:


> Well you have certainly put your case articulately. I agree with DavidA, no point in comparing her in repertoire she was not equipped to sing and generally chose not to. I don't claim she could sing everything. So we agree at the far ends of the spectrum about her strengths and weaknesses; it's a matter of where we draw the line. You say no to Violetta. I think her Traviata with Pavarotti is almost unrivalled - I've never heard Parigi o cara so lovely. Perhaps we've found the line.


As we have said before, most singers don't sing everything. Even Callas didn't. But what we are talking about is the quality of the voice here. I've no doubt if Joan had have gone in another direction she cold have made a name singing Wagner. Her voice would have developed differently had she had different coaching. But Bonynge took her in another direction. Fine if that's what they wanted. She was one of the most successful sopranos post WW2. Who could ask for more?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Steatopygous said:


> Well you have certainly put your case articulately. I agree with DavidA, no point in comparing her in repertoire she was not equipped to sing and generally chose not to. I don't claim she could sing everything. So we agree at the far ends of the spectrum about her strengths and weaknesses; it's a matter of where we draw the line. You say no to Violetta. I think her Traviata with Pavarotti is almost unrivalled - I've never heard Parigi o cara so lovely. Perhaps we've found the line.


But I didn't say "no" to Violetta! That was in the "yes" group!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> ...please listen to this and tell me if you hear lyric anything


An example of an aria that concentrates on high, forcefully sung coloratura doesn't show that Sutherland's voice wasn't more lyric than dramatic in texture. That is _not_ dramatic music, in the strict sense of having to exhibit powers of expression and portray character, pathos, and color. But I'm not debating definitions with Mr. Fach. I don't care where you personally draw boundaries between vocal "types." Sutherland's vocal type was Sutherland, the One and Only. Just don't inflict her on Isolde and Elektra and I'll leave you to split hairs eternally in Fach Paradise.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> An example of an aria that concentrates on high, forcefully sung coloratura doesn't show that Sutherland's voice wasn't more lyric than dramatic in texture. That is _not_ dramatic music, in the strict sense of having to exhibit powers of expression and portray character, pathos, and color. But I'm not debating definitions with Mr. Fach. I don't care where you personally draw boundaries between vocal "types." Sutherland's vocal type was Sutherland, the One and Only. Just don't inflict her on Isolde and Elektra and I'll leave you to split hairs eternally in Fach Paradise.


if that's how you define "dramatic", then the reason you believe Sutherland would not have made a respectable Brunnhilde boils down to acting rather than inert vocal qualities, which is something that can be learned.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> if that's how you define "dramatic", then the reason you believe Sutherland would not have made a respectable Brunnhilde boils down to acting rather than inert vocal qualities, which is something that can be learned.


No, it isn't just acting. Not all voices have the innate capability of expressing strong or complex emotions in all registers. The voice of Callas, for example had interesting colors as well as strength in all its registers, and she knew how to use those colors for a huge range of expressive purposes. Sutherland's voice was far more limited in that respect (and to be fair, most voices are). An ideal voice for Brunnhilde has solidity at the bottom and a firm "bite" in its midrange, as well as a powerful top up to at least B - in other words, almost a mezzo with a good upper extension. Nilsson's voice was atypical in sitting higher, but she had the metal and thrust to compensate, and in fact managed the bottom well. Sutherland's voice was not only fairly monochrome but basically rather soft in texture despite its power, and her very manner of vocal production, as well as the peculiar resonances of her tone, militated against verbal clarity. Again, this is not mere "acting"; verbal articulation and vocal technique and timbre are not separate but interrelated.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

May I offer a counter argument. Isolde, Bruinhilde, Elektra. All GERMAN dramatic soprano parts. There is a whole other field of dramatic soprano voices you did NOT mention: Ponselle, Milanov or Callas. Had Joan not developed the astounding extension at the top of her voice for coloratura singing, the lower part of the voice would likely have fallen in line with the middle and the top of the voice in being a dramatic soprano voice capable of Aida, Gioconda, Amelia or Tosca. She started out as a mezzo so must have had a rich bottom voice. What I want to ask, though, is how do you differentiate between her truly massive sound and any other coloratura besides Maria or Lehmann? Remember what the VERY reputable source Marilyn Horne said: she heard only two or three voices as big as Joan's and this was during the golden age of opera. This was during the age when Tebaldi, Varnay, Nilsson Crespin and Milanov were onstage. We have no voices like these onstage now. From the middle to the top she was orders of magintude bigger than any other coloratura singers. Do we call Price a lyric soprano just because her top was lyric in size but the rest was a true spinto?? Also, with regards to steel in the voice, the top took on a decidely steely sound after 1970. Also the middle became much darker and richer as she aged. Her later Norma was a much bigger voice than the one in 64, with the exception of those mind blowing D's and D#'s that rivaled Nilsson's in power in her 64 Norma. I see some of the counter points, but does one just say she was a lyric coloratura with a freakin microphone in her throat. She was like a Michael Jordan, the basketball freak, in being on a different level than any other artist singing her repertoire with the exception of the early Callas. I just don't think lyric encompasses all the other facets her voice encompasses. Just sayin' Happy Holidays lovely friends.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> May I offer a counter argument. Isolde, Bruinhilde, Elektra. All GERMAN dramatic soprano parts. There is a whole other field of dramatic soprano voices you did NOT mention: Ponselle, Milanov or Callas.* Had Joan not developed the astounding extension at the top of her voice for coloratura singing, the lower part of the voice would likely have fallen in line with the middle and the top of the voice in being a dramatic soprano voice capable of Aida, Gioconda, Amelia or Tosca.* *She started out as a mezzo so must have had a rich bottom voice.* What I want to ask, though, is how do you differentiate between her truly massive sound and any other coloratura besides Maria or Lehmann? Remember what the VERY reputable source Marilyn Horne said: she heard only two or three voices as big as Joan's and this was during the golden age of opera. This was during the age when Tebaldi, Varnay, Nilsson Crespin and Milanov were onstage. We have no voices like these onstage now. From the middle to the top she was orders of magintude bigger than any other coloratura singers. Do we call Price a lyric soprano just because her top was lyric in size but the rest was a true spinto?? Also, with regards to steel in the voice, the top took on a decidely steely sound after 1970. Also the middle became much darker and richer as she aged. Her later Norma was a much bigger voice than the one in 64, with the exception of those mind blowing D's and D#'s that rivaled Nilsson's in power in her 64 Norma. I see some of the counter points, but does one just say she was a lyric coloratura with a freakin microphone in her throat. She was like a Michael Jordan, the basketball freak, in being on a different level than any other artist singing her repertoire with the exception of the early Callas. *I just don't think lyric encompasses all the other facets her voice encompasses. *Just sayin' Happy Holidays lovely friends.


No one, least of all I, claims that Sutherland had no dramatic capabilities or that that her voice was "merely" lyric in quality. I have simply said that "lyric" describes her better than "dramatic" with respect to the repertoire to which she was best-suited. We should try to avoid a glib "typing" of singers and think specifically about roles and what traits of voice and temperament they require. I've also tried to make the point that the various aspects of singing - range, volume, register development, timbre, flexibility, diction, musicality, temperament, and imagination - are not separable but all depend upon, influence, and limit one another in producing an artist and in determining what she will do most effectively. Maybe this is difficult for non-singers to comprehend. Could Sutherland have focused on dramatic soprano roles and had some success with some of them? Probably. Would she have made the extraordinary impression in such roles that she made in the repertoire she actually sang? Certainly not. "La Stupenda" was stupendous because she did what she actually did, and better than anyone else was doing it.

I'm afraid your remarks here are inaccurate or confused on several counts. 1.) You say I list only German _roles_, but then you mention non-German _singers_. Those are two different subjects. Which do you want to talk about? 2.) If you read my posts, I do in fact mention non-German roles which I think Sutherland was wise to avoid: Abigaille, Aida, Gioconda, Tosca, Minnie, Maddalena, Santuzza. 3.) Sutherland's voice was _not at all_ like any of the three sopranos you mention. Ponselle's was dark, rich, full, powerful and even from top to bottom, and had tremendous bite and weight - which includes volume but also has to do with timbre. Callas? The recorded evidence of her capabilities is all there and if I start talking about her I'll probably be accused of being a worshiper who tries to put every other singer down, so I'll let her speak for herself. Milanov? I don't care for her or listen to her so I won't comment, except to say that her voice, too, is quite different from Sutherland's, and more suited to the dramatic roles she sang very effectively. The mere fact that you bring up these particular singers makes me wonder how you hear voices. You might as well have dragged Eileen Farrell into the conversation - another true dramatic soprano (non-German, by the way). Heck, Renata Tebaldi was much more of a dramatic soprano than Sutherland! Just listen to her powerful singing - and vocal acting - of Minnie's poker scene at the Met if you doubt it. No way on God's green earth could Sutherland have duplicated that.

You say _"Had Joan not developed the astounding extension at the top of her voice for coloratura singing, the lower part of the voice would likely have fallen in line with the middle and the top of the voice in being a dramatic soprano voice capable of Aida, Gioconda, Amelia or Tosca. She started out as a mezzo so must have had a rich bottom voice."_ This is nothing but speculation. There is no audible evidence that her voice would have developed in the way you imagine, and your statement actually admits that _as we actually know her_ she was not suited to Aida, Gioconda, Amelia or Tosca. Thanks for supporting me on that! As for starting as a mezzo, she imitated her mezzo-soprano mother's singing as a girl, and plenty of singers take a bit of time to figure out what they ought to be singing. This tells us absolutely nothing about the sound of her voice in her student years, but again, _as we know her,_ she sounds nothing whatever like a mezzo. As far as I can see, the only trait you can point to in Sutherland's singing that would qualify her for the dramatic soprano repertoire is volume. Well, fine, you have to be loud - but that's not enough. Why it's not enough seems to beyond the imagination of most people here, even though there are plenty of recordings by real dramatic sopranos that make the case quite plainly.

What astounds me about the way this thread has developed- and this phenomenon has arisen before - is the need for fans of singers to try to make them into what they never were and never should or could have been. I dispute the notion that Sutherland should have sung Isolde and Brunnhilde, Sutherland herself agrees with me, she makes a fabulous career in the bel canto repertoire, she finally makes some mediocre Wagner recordings that can't begin to stand comparison with those of really great dramatic sopranos, and what happens? Instead of recognizing that she was right about the capabilities of her own voice and sensible in how she chose to employ it, people howl that her high C was as loud as Birgit Nilsson's and that that proves she might as well have been something she wasn't.

Yeah, as Anna Russell sings in "How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta":

_"Things would be so different
If they were not as they are." _


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> ...please listen to this and tell me if you hear lyric anything


Wow! After hearing that what can one say but "La Stupenda!" :tiphat:

In an interview Sutherland was asked what she thought of the title. She replied, "I didn't know whether they were talking about my height or my voice!"


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

One thing that may have limited Sutherland was the fact that Bonynge became her conductor. This may have been convenient artistically but it did mean that she didn't work with the great conductors of her age.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> No one, least of all I, claims that Sutherland had no dramatic capabilities or that that her voice was "merely" lyric in quality. I have simply said that "lyric" describes her better than "dramatic" with respect to the repertoire to which she was best-suited. We should try to avoid a glib "typing" of singers and think specifically about roles and what traits of voice and temperament they require. I've also tried to make the point that the various aspects of singing - range, volume, register development, timbre, flexibility, diction, musicality, temperament, and imagination - are not separable but all depend upon, influence, and limit one another in producing an artist and in determining what she will do most effectively. Maybe this is difficult for non-singers to comprehend. Could Sutherland have focused on dramatic soprano roles and had some success with some of them? Probably. Would she have made the extraordinary impression in such roles that she made in the repertoire she actually sang? Certainly not. "La Stupenda" was stupendous because she did what she actually did, and better than anyone else was doing it.
> 
> I'm afraid your remarks here are inaccurate or confused on several counts. 1.) You say I list only German _roles_, but then you mention non-German _singers_. Those are two different subjects. Which do you want to talk about? 2.) If you read my posts, I do in fact mention non-German roles which I think Sutherland was wise to avoid: Abigaille, Aida, Gioconda, Tosca, Minnie, Maddalena, Santuzza. 3.) Sutherland's voice was _not at all_ like any of the three sopranos you mention. Ponselle's was dark, rich, full, powerful and even from top to bottom, and had tremendous bite and weight - which includes volume but also has to do with timbre. Callas? The recorded evidence of her capabilities is all there and if I start talking about her I'll probably be accused of being a worshiper who tries to put every other singer down, so I'll let her speak for herself. Milanov? I don't care for her or listen to her so I won't comment, except to say that her voice, too, is quite different from Sutherland's, and more suited to the dramatic roles she sang very effectively. The mere fact that you bring up these particular singers makes me wonder how you hear voices. You might as well have dragged Eileen Farrell into the conversation - another true dramatic soprano (non-German, by the way). Heck, Renata Tebaldi was much more of a dramatic soprano than Sutherland! Just listen to her powerful singing - and vocal acting - of Minnie's poker scene at the Met if you doubt it. No way on God's green earth could Sutherland have duplicated that.
> 
> ...


Woodduck, I learn more from you than almost any one else on this site. Your arguments are very solid. One small point I will contend with is that we DO have an idea of what Sutherland would have sounded like in dramatic soprano roles and she does a fine job as Aida with a much more solid bottom to the voice than one hears after her shift to coloratura parts. 



 was before Bonynge started pushing the voice up. I DO agree, Wagner is out, and that she would not be The Voice of the Century had she chosen a more conventional repertoire. She chose her path wisely. I do remember you mentioning Italian roles earlier but not in the post I was responding to. I am a little mad for Joanie.Cheers.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bonynge takes a lot of flack, but when I listen to Sutherland's pre-hubby work I can't help thinking that he deserves it. Her style was clean and direct then - no moony swoony phrasing and little swells on note after note - and her diction fine. Callas was fortunate to work with a great musician like Serafin, and she knew it and was forever grateful. All Bonynge was good for was waving a stick. He should have just gotten a job as music director at a ballet company and married a dancer.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Woodduck, I learn more from you than almost any one else on this site. Your arguments are very solid. One small point I will contend with is that we DO have an idea of what Sutherland would have sounded like in dramatic soprano roles and she does a fine job as Aida with a much more solid bottom to the voice than one hears after her shift to coloratura parts.
> 
> 
> 
> was before Bonynge started pushing the voice up. I DO agree, Wagner is out, and that she would not be The Voice of the Century had she chosen a more conventional repertoire. She chose her path wisely. I do remember you mentioning Italian roles earlier but not in the post I was responding to. I am a little mad for Joanie.Cheers.


Seattleoperafan, all I can say about that "Ritorna vincitor" is that it demonstrates perfectly why she was wise not to stay with the dramatic soprano repertoire! I hear a nice Australian girl with a lovely lyric soprano voice who would make a delightful Mimi.

Now, for the hell of it, here's the genuine article (except for a missing phrase; don't know what happened there):






I'm glad we agree that Joan chose the right path. In the right music, and pre-Bonynge, she was everything people say she was - except a dramatic soprano!


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I can't complain about Rosa!!!!!!!!!!!!! Her Nile Scene with Martinelli is the BEST.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> If I were forced to put her in a category, I'd call her a powerful lyric-coloratura with light-dramatic potential, best suited to the repertoire she mostly sang, i.e. Baroque through mid-19th-century Romantic opera and oratorio. Alcina, Donna Anna, Lucia, Violetta, and Elsa, yes. Medea, Leonore, Aida, Isolde and Minnie, no thanks.


I know I already responded to this...but really

this is a lyric coloratura soprano





this is not a lyric coloratura soprano





I understand your aversion to vocal nitpicking and overly rigid classifications, but surely you realize it's silly to put such different voices into the same category


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> I know I already responded to this...but really
> 
> this is a lyric coloratura soprano
> 
> ...


I really don't put her in _any_ category, and I've said so. I _did_ say (much to my sorrow) that if I was _forced_ to categorize her, I would call her a strong lyric coloratura with some dramatic potential (which is not anything I would say about Dessay, a light lyric coloratura who overextended herself), but _not_ a dramatic soprano. That last part - *not a dramatic soprano* - is the part that matters.

Now: can we stop splitting definitional hairs - PLEASE?!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Just listenng to The Art of Joan Sutherland and can say the voice appears huge.


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## SanyiKocka (May 6, 2020)

Most sopranos that are good at coloratura are lyric or even lighter. (This is also true for men) However, this does not mean a soprano who has a big and dramatic voice cannot be excellent in singing coloratura. It is rare, but Dame Joan Sutherland is one example. Coloratura is a skill but not a voice type. 
Also, I am pretty surprised that Sutherland does not have ant recording of singing Liu.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I am always out of step. I just re read this thread from some time ago and saw something I think people missed. People were arguing over whether Sutherland was a dramatic soprano or not. While I don't consider her a dramatic soprano as such, I DO consider her a dramatic coloratura soprano, which is a horse of a different color. Soprano drammatico d'agilità is another term for the same fach. She and Callas were probably the only two sopranos who could sing notes above the staff with the volume of a dramatic soprano. There have actually been very few of these. Sutherland, Callas and Lillie Lehman and possibly Rita Hunter were some of the very few singers who combined a big soprano voice with dexterity of voice. Eaglen and Dimitrova were able to sing Norma well, but did not make a career out of coloratura roles. Do you guys agree that a dramatic coloratura is different from a dramatic soprano????????


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I am always out of step. I just re read this thread from some time ago and saw something I think people missed. People were arguing over whether Sutherland was a dramatic soprano or not. While I don't consider her a dramatic soprano as such, I DO consider her a dramatic coloratura soprano, which is a horse of a different color. Soprano drammatico d'agilità is another term for the same fach. She and Callas were probably the only two sopranos who could sing notes above the staff with the volume of a dramatic soprano. There have actually been very few of these. Sutherland, Callas and Lillie Lehman and possibly Rita Hunter were some of the very few singers who combined a big soprano voice with dexterity of voice. Eaglen and Dimitrova were able to sing Norma well, but did not make a career out of coloratura roles. Do you guys agree that a dramatic coloratura is different from a dramatic soprano????????


You forgot Rosa Ponselle, who had fine flexibility and was a distinguished Norma.

Being a member of operatic antifa (anti-fach), I don't like to call singers a this-or-a-that except in specific contexts where it's actually useful to distinguish a singer's characteristics from those of others. I suppose it's reasonable to call Sutherland a dramatic coloratura in some contexts (Baroque music, for example), though I don't find in her voice the kind of body and bite in the middle and lower registers I expect from a singer I'd call "dramatic." Listen to her do the "Libera me" from the Verdi _Requiem._






A reasonable effort if we're talking about the climactic high notes, but otherwise just not the real thing. The loud parts lack incisiveness, and the soft parts are fragile and even fluttery; poor loony Lucia seems to have taken a wrong turn on her way to Ravenswood. Even Caballe, who is not normally classified as a dramatic soprano though she ventured into dramatic repertoire, has more of the requisite firmness of tone and line, as well as declamatory force:






Being loud does not qualify a voice as "dramatic," if that term is to have any real meaning. If I had to classify Sutherland, which fortunately I don't, I'd call her a strong lyric-coloratura to denote the sort of music she sang best.

A dramatic coloratura is a singer capable of marrying great declamatory force and firm tone from top to bottom with outstanding flexibility. Callas filled the bill, Sutherland not quite.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> You forgot Rosa Ponselle, who had fine flexibility and was a distinguished Norma.
> 
> Being a member of operatic antifa (anti-fach), I don't like to call singers a this-or-a-that except in specific contexts where it's actually useful to distinguish a singer's characteristics from those of others. I suppose it's reasonable to call Sutherland a dramatic coloratura in some contexts (Baroque music, for example), though I don't find in her voice the kind of body and bite in the middle and lower registers I expect from a singer I'd call "dramatic." Listen to her do the "Libera me" from the Verdi _Requiem._
> 
> ...


Good points. Sutherland would not have been able to do Lady Macbeth or Abigaille, which Callas was triumphant in. Ponselle, yes.... but no D's and Eb's for her.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

> Sutherland would not have been able to do Lady Macbeth or Abigaille, .


But here repertoire is much wider and not to be ignored. Just see the catalog with official recordings, show me another one with such a wide range of roles / recording.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Rogerx said:


> But here repertoire is much wider and not to be ignored. Just see the catalog with official recordings, show me another one with such a wide range of roles / recording.


I am not taking away from her amazing repertoire. But those two roles really need a voice that is big from the chest to high C as well as daunting coloratura. They both ruined voices and Sutherland left them alone for good reason. Callas had that edge over Sutherland, but Sutherland is still justifiably LaStupenda. 



 In this early Bel Raggio you can hear that early on she had a much richer lower register, but apparently Richard felt that it would be detrimental to her career to continue singing that way. When you hear the increased amplitude and richness of her upper extension in the later part of her career perhaps the proof is in the pudding. Bonynge would not have had such a career without Dame Joan BUT we would not have had Joan Sutherland LaStupenda without him guiding her voice and repertoire. I can put up with his lackluster conducting when you balance it with his invaluable vocal coach work he did with Joan. She would have never become the towering pinnacle of coloratura she became without him. He also allowed her to have a huge career but combined that with the invaluable company he provided on the very long and arduous international career. Joan's domestic happiness when touring likely kept her touring much longer than if she had a totally solo career. Without him I feel she would have had a career much like Debbie Voigt's before she unwisely began singing Brunhilde and Isolde. She would have likely been a major talent but not the towering talent she became because of Richard.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> You forgot Rosa Ponselle, who had fine flexibility and was a distinguished Norma.
> 
> Being a member of operatic antifa (anti-fach), I don't like to call singers a this-or-a-that except in specific contexts where it's actually useful to distinguish a singer's characteristics from those of others. I suppose it's reasonable to call Sutherland a dramatic coloratura in some contexts (Baroque music, for example), though I don't find in her voice the kind of body and bite in the middle and lower registers I expect from a singer I'd call "dramatic." Listen to her do the "Libera me" from the Verdi _Requiem._
> 
> ...


I've always thought her contribution to the Verdi *Requiem* was all wrong ("a classic of misinterpretation", Alan Blyth calls it in _Opera on Record III_), and your description of poor, loony Lucy having taken a wrong turn is spot on. However large her voice, the mooning, droopy style is at odds with the music. The soprano part really cries out for a Tebaldi (so strange that she never made a commercial recording of it), a Leontyne Price, a Ponselle (though I don't think she ever sang it). These are all spintos, but lighter voices have made their mark in it too (Scotto on Muti's first recording, Freni for Karajan, and Schwarzkopf, both for De Sabata and Giulini), which I ascribe to them having stronger middle and lower registers and treating the music more dramatically.

The soprano who surprised me in it was Jessye Norman, who more often took the mezzo role in this work. Here she is in 1981 with Muti. This is absolutely fantastic.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I've always thought her contribution to the Verdi *Requiem* was all wrong ("a classic of misinterpretation", Alan Blyth calls it in _Opera on Record III_), and your description of poor, loony Lucy having taken a wrong turn is spot on. However large her voice, the mooning, droopy style is at odds with the music. The soprano part really cries out for a Tebaldi (so strange that she never made a commercial recording of it), a Leontyne Price, a Ponselle (though I don't think she ever sang it). These are all spintos, but lighter voices have made their mark in it too (Scotto on Muti's first recording, Freni for Karajan, and Schwarzkopf, both for De Sabata and Giulini), which I ascribe to them having stronger middle and lower registers and treating the music more dramatically.
> 
> The soprano who surprised me in it was Jessye Norman, who more often took the mezzo role in this work. Here she is in 1981 with Muti. This is absolutely fantastic.


I discovered this recently and Jessye is perfect here!!!!!! I was really surprised. Of course, the only B in the part is sung softly, which suited her voice as her very top is smaller. The climaxes are all A5, which is where her voice climaxes.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Good points. Sutherland would not have been able to do *Lady Macbeth* or Abigaille, which Callas was triumphant in. Ponselle, yes.... but no D's and Eb's for her.


I just happened to read Nilsson's interview with Hines and this is what Nilsson said about Macbeth: "For Lady Macbeth you really need three voices. You start first as a dramatic soprano. Then all of a sudden, you get a mezzo aria, and then you have to sing the Brindisi, which is full of coloratura."

Sutherland had a stunningly beautiful coloratura and top but while she had a huge voice, I think her voice was lacking darkness, even in the lower register. This is why I wouldn't call her truly dramatic. "Dramatic coloratura" might work though but I'm not well enough acquainted with the terminology. (I should note that this observation is made purely on the basis of listening experience and not proper knowledge...)


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## Saxman (Jun 11, 2019)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I've always thought her contribution to the Verdi *Requiem* was all wrong ("a classic of misinterpretation", Alan Blyth calls it in _Opera on Record III_), and your description of poor, loony Lucy having taken a wrong turn is spot on. However large her voice, the mooning, droopy style is at odds with the music. The soprano part really cries out for a Tebaldi (so strange that she never made a commercial recording of it), a Leontyne Price, a Ponselle (though I don't think she ever sang it). These are all spintos, but lighter voices have made their mark in it too (Scotto on Muti's first recording, Freni for Karajan, and Schwarzkopf, both for De Sabata and Giulini), which I ascribe to them having stronger middle and lower registers and treating the music more dramatically.
> 
> The soprano who surprised me in it was Jessye Norman, who more often took the mezzo role in this work. Here she is in 1981 with Muti. This is absolutely fantastic.


Oh my! This is amazing!!! Is the whole thing available somewhere?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Saxman said:


> Oh my! This is amazing!!! Is the whole thing available somewhere?


It sure is. And it's a thrilling performance.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> It sure is. And it's a thrilling performance.


 Verdi *Messa da Requiem*
Jessye Norman, Agnes Baltsa, Jose Carreras, Evgeny Nesterenko
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Riccardo Muti
Munich October 1981


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