# Single Round: Handel's Ah mio cor: Sutherland and Fleming



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Please see my notes below.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

This is one of my very favorite arias, both from the melody itself and the gorgeous accompaniment. The orchestra sounds very different in the different versions. There is a 59 and a 61 version of Sutherland's and personally I find the later one to have more emotional involvement but Mas thought it was mushy ( which I don't hear) so I switched to the earlier version at the time when her diction is best. I know that is what most of you like with her. I don't know languages so it is not a consideration to me. Fleming's is much longer and slower but it really impressed me when i discovered it for this contest. It is very quintessentially Renee so if you don't like her freedom of interpretation you might skip it. I think it is gorgeous! It won't be the first time I am alone in my love of a version. One of my favorite opera photos is Sutherland in Zeffirelli's Venice production of Alcina. If memory is correct I believe it was the first time Handel had been performed in Italy in at least a century.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

The slow tempo of Fleming’s version turns it into a shapless mess and the vocal indulgence of her singing doesn’t help matters; she’s just reveling in the beauty of her voice.

Sutherland by default, though I don’t like vocal mush much. Any words there?


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

MAS said:


> The slow tempo of Fleming’s version turns it into a shapless mess and the vocal indulgence of her singing doesn’t help matters; she’s just reveling in the beauty of her voice.
> 
> Sutherland by default, though I don’t like vocal mush much. Any words there?


I don't hear the mush, but I will switch to the earlier version I don't like as much but supposedly her diction was better.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I'll go with Sutherland - like her expressiveness and beauty of tone. Fleming sounds matronly in comparison.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I don't hear the mush, but I will switch to the earlier version I don't like as much but supposedly her diction was better.


 I should have checked with you as you like the Sutherland stuff most like here. I hear it with different ears.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

The early sutherland Alcina is one of the only recordings by her I really enjoy and Fleming's sound is too nasal for me. Easy choice!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

What's this? You've switched Sutherland recordings while I was writing what follows! 1959's is much, much better than 1961's. Well, too late, and too bad. I've reviewed the 1961, and I will vote accordingly. So take that, Clyde!

Sutherland is flat from the very first note and frequently thereafter. Moony, swoony, droopy phrasing. Verbally indecipherable. She sounds as if she's asleep, startled awake for a brief allegro and melting back into a torpor. Dreadful. Fleming is far more interesting, taut in phrasing even at such a slow tempo, and always aware that she's saying something and - wonder of wonders! - using words (lovely things, words) to do it. It's a pity she feels the need to indulge in such excesses in the da capo. I was mostly with her to that point. Nonetheless I have to pick her over Sutherland, who kept me interested only to see whether she was going to wake up before I fell asleep.

You should keep both Sutherland recordings here. The comparison is at least instructive.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> What's this? You've switched Sutherland recordings while I was writing what follows! 1959's is much, much better than 1961's. Well, too late, and too bad. I've reviewed the 1961, and I will vote accordingly. So take that, Clyde!
> 
> Sutherland is flat from the very first note and frequently thereafter. Moony, swoony, droopy phrasing. Verbally indecipherable. She sounds as if she's asleep, startled awake for a brief allegro and melting back into a torpor. Dreadful. Fleming is far more interesting, taut in phrasing even at such a slow tempo, and always aware that she's saying something and - wonder of wonders! - using words (lovely things, words) to do it. It's a pity she feels the need to indulge in such excesses in the da capo. I was mostly with her to that point. Nonetheless I have to pick her over Sutherland, who kept me interested only to see whether she was going to wake up before I fell asleep.
> 
> You should keep both Sutherland recordings here. The comparison is at least instructive.


I hear her with different ears from everyone else on this site.I didn't hear flat - I heard one tone under for a vocal tension. Perhaps Bonynge's research supported it. What do I know. Sorry I switched. I foresaw a disaster and I don't handle Sutherland disasters with the grace I aspire to.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I hear her with different ears from everyone else on this site.I didn't hear flat - I heard one tone under for a vocal tension. *Perhaps Bonynge's research supported it.* What do I know. Sorry I switched. I foresaw a disaster and I don't handle Sutherland disasters with the grace I aspire to.


Haha. I think I'd rather not know what Bonynge's research turned up. He was a Pygmalion in reverse; he turned a flesh-and-blood woman into a statue, though I think some statues have better diction.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Well I listened to all three versions and would agree that Sutherland's 1959 version is better than the 1961. The 1961 is awful. LIke Woodduck I hear her flat on the very first note and I just can't take the mushy mooniness. The 1959 version is much cleaner. Her diction is better and the natural beauty of the voice is pleasure in itself.

However I prefer the Fleming version in almost every respect. I've always liked Christie in Handel. I heard him conduct a riveting and thriling *Hercules *in London many moons ago, with Joyce DiDonato a superb Dejanira and it remains one of my most memorable evenings in the theatre. This *Alcina *is live too and I think he and Fleming sustain the slow tempo brilliantly, keeping the tension. I prefer the sound and texture of the original instruments too. Indeed I find it hard to listen to modern instruments in baroque music now. I suppose Fleming might be accused of indulging herself a bit in the da capo section, but, by and large, she seems to me much more involved and involving. I can imagine hanging on her every note in the theatre. It's Fleming for me.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Händel at last! Thank you, SeattleOperaFun. 
It's one of my favorite operas and arias, and a regular source of earworm (I've just got over Derby Ring I attended last month). 
One of amenities (I hope my English is not very bad) of baroque music is a possibility of improvisation. I've got used to period instruments too, but I find many recordings made with modern instruments no less interesting. (There is for example a recording of Il Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato made by Leningrad Philharmonic orchestra in russian translation in 1960-s).
Here the choice was hard. And despite a very sophisticated version of Fleming & Christie my vote is for Sutherland due to dazzling beauty of the voice. 
If we begin deconstructing Alcina's thoughts and motivations, then, I think, both singers were good enough in transmission of melancholy and feeling that everything is over. Alcina may be villainous of certain degree and selfish, but hers is a story of a lonely person constructing her own world. 
P. S. Would there be only one more round?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

The strangest thing happened last night. My mate and I both agreed emphatically that Fleming was going to get our vote with her incredibly creamy voice but we got a phone call and I never got to vote for her. 
Now I awaken to hear that there is a different Sutherland up there and not the one with the mushy middle. I have not heard it but feel I should not do that to Fleming who won, fair and square, over the contest I heard last night, so Fleming it is.
I shall now listen to La Stupenda to hear the difference.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> The strangest thing happened last night. My mate and I both agreed emphatically that Fleming was going to get our vote with her incredibly creamy voice but we got a phone call and I never got to vote for her.
> Now I awaken to hear that there is a different Sutherland up there and not the one with the mushy middle. I have not heard it but feel I should not do that to Fleming who won, fair and square, over the contest I heard last night, so Fleming it is.
> I shall now listen to La Stupenda to hear the difference.


Both Sutherlands are here now. I presume the 1959 is now the official one, but it's definitely instructive to listen to both.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Listening to the earlier one -- there's my gorgeous La Stupenda -- the one I was weaned on -- sans that Bonynge mushy middle that for some reason he found enhanced her voice. What it did for me was to jump off the bandwagon.


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## collinztyler007 (6 mo ago)

Nice and smooth, I love the flow and blend of the beat


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