# Joan Sutherland as a Mezzo Soprano?



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

This aria was originally written for Maria Malibran, a mezzo with a huge extension on top. Many find it hard to believe that Joan Sutherland trained initially as a mezzo soprano. At this point in her career she did indeed have a big, rich and very beautiful lower part to her voice. If you doubt me, listen to the start of this aria. Several people in the comments noticed the same thing. Apparently the Bonynges decided not to keep this fullness down low in order to protect the voice for later in life. In the middle to later years fulness entered back into the lower voice, but never to this extent:


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Stupendous!!!!!


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

Seattleoperafan said:


> This aria was originally written for Maria Malibran, a mezzo with a huge extension on top. Many find it hard to believe that Joan Sutherland trained initially as a mezzo soprano. At this point in her career she did indeed have a big, rich and very beautiful lower part to her voice. If you doubt me, listen to the start of this aria. Several people in the comments noticed the same thing. Apparently the Bonynges decided not to keep this fullness down low in order to protect the voice for later in life. In the middle to later years fulness entered back into the lower voice, but never to this extent:


It's a brilliant performance. The recording might also be a bit low in pitch? her voice sounds quite different.

I read that Joan's mother was a mezzo and Joan sang with that familiar low sound before she was trained further - she also idolised Flagstad with her rich sound.

When you mentioned that it was a conscious decision by the couple, I wonder if that was such a good thing.

Given that Richard was ubiquitous after 1963, it can seem contrary that I find some of her most satisfying records the rare times like with Mehta, Cillario and Hogwood when someone else was in charge. She used a rich dark sound as Desdemona with Cillario - perhaps Richard had a thing about chest voice






Thanks, David


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Maybe not coincidentally, Joan's diction is a lot better in this performance of _Bel raggio_ than it was to become. The middle and low voices here are rich and firm with absolutely no detriment to the free and ringing top register. I'd like her a lot more if she'd continued singing like this.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

All points well taken. For Joan herself, as a world traveller the constant traveling could be very, very lonely I'm sure and having your partner with you must have helped. She might have wearied of touring earlier had her support system not been with her. Other conductors might have brought more out in her, but the companionship must have made her life much more pleasant. Her money notes were her high notes and there is no question when you listen to this and compare with 15 to 20 years later the top may have lost the Eb,BUT it became much much bigger and fuller in sound and perhaps that was what they hoped for. The top D's in her late 50's were as big as Maria Callas's in her fat prime, and THAT is saying a lot. She also doesn't seem to have lost the flexibility with her voice gaining in size. Just my opinion... but others have noted it as well.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

If you want to give it another voice type, this sounds like a spinto with coloratura, not a mezzo. Alas, lovely as ever. In spite of my recent penchant for singers with more developed voce di petto, the beauty, elegance and glimmer of Joan's heroic soprano will never fail to move me.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> If you want to give it another voice type, this sounds like a spinto with coloratura, not a mezzo. Alas, lovely as ever. In spite of my recent penchant for singers with more developed voce di petto, the beauty, elegance and glimmer of Joan's heroic soprano will never fail to move me.


You are probably on the whole more correct than me. Overall definitely spinto with agility, but at the beginning you could mistake her for a mezzo in the first minute if you didn't know her. What is voce di petto? I don't know that term B Boy?


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> You are probably on the whole more correct than me. Overall definitely spinto with agility, but at the beginning you could mistake her for a mezzo in the first minute if you didn't know her. What is voce di petto? I don't know that term B Boy?


"voce di petto" is just a fancy word for "chest voice". like, REAL chest voice, the kind you hear from Fedora Barbieri, Helen Traubel, Mario del Monaco or Cornel Macneil and opposed to modern singers who tend to avoid it and drag down the middle register. the only star even attempting to sing with real chest voice today Kaufmann, and the only singer of any fach I see doing it successful is the Spanish spinto soprano Saioa Hernandez.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> "voce di petto" is just a fancy word for "chest voice". like, REAL chest voice, the kind you hear from Fedora Barbieri, Helen Traubel, Mario del Monaco or Cornel Macneil and opposed to modern singers who tend to avoid it and drag down the middle register. the only star even attempting to sing with real chest voice today Kaufmann, and the only singer of any fach I see doing it successful is the Spanish spinto soprano Saioa Hernandez.


Thanks. Why not Renee Fleming, Ewa Podles, and Christine Goerke??? They sound like use chest voice. Renee and Ewa are likely towards the end of their careers now.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Thanks. Why not Renee Fleming, Ewa Podles, and Christine Goerke??? They sound like use chest voice. Renee and Ewa are likely towards the end of their careers now.


Renee Fleming: sort of

the other two use don't use real voce di petto

this clip illustrates the differences well


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