Joan Sutherland - Biography
Joan Sutherland celebrated coloratura soprano and Dame of British Empire was born in Sydney Australia on November 12th 1926.Her mother was an amateur mezzo- soprano who gave Joan rudimentary training. Sutherland then formally started formal training with John and Aida Dickens. Her debut was in a concert presentation of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. Her stage debut was in 1951 in Judith an opera by Sir Eugene Goosens the English conductor who was at the time a major cultural force in Australia. Sutherland won a singing contest that enabled her to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Sutherland was soon to become a part of the ensemble at the London Covent Garden Opera where for the few years she would sing in roles large and small and receive invaluable experience. Her vocal coach was a young aspiring conductor, also from Sydney Richard Bonynge who was to become her husband in 1954 and was to have a profound effect on her career. Sutherland participated in the premiere of Britten’s Gloriana and Tippet’s The Midsummer Marriage. Bonynge was training her privately to assume the repertoire that she was uniquely able to sing, the operas of Handel and the Bel Canto operas of Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini. She revived Handel’s Alcina in 1957 with Bonynge in concert. She made a terrific effect when she sang in Handel’s Samson at Covent Garden the following year.
Sutherland was to become an international star when in 1959 she sang the title role In Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at Covent Garden. The production conducted by Sir John Pritchard opened up the traditional cuts and gave new stature to the opera. Pritchard and Sutherland soon recorded the opera which became a best seller and spread her fame worldwide. Handel’s Alcina was to serve as her debut role in the U.S. in 1960 and after singing the role in Venice the same year that she received the accolade that would be attached to her from then on, La Stupenda. Her debut at the Met in 1961 was a triumph. That year she was to release the double LP, The Art of the Prima Donna wherein she sang roles associated with great sopranos of the first half of the Nineteenth Century.
Through the early 1960’s she revived roles that became associated with her the title role in Rossini’s Semiramide, Margaret De Valois in Meyerbeer’s Huguenots, Cleopatra in Handel’s Julius Caesar and Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda. She also took on traditional repertoire roles like Gilda in Rigoletto, Violetta in Traviata both by Verdi. She was also take on the three great Bellini heroines Amina in La Sonnumbala, Elvira in Puritani and the most challenging of all Norma. By the mid sixties more of her performances would be conducted by Bonynge and she would be coupled with a mezzo-soprano who was as amazing vocally and musically as she was Marilyn Horne. Not to take anything away from Sutherland’s amazing achievements it’s to be noted she filled the vacuum that occurred with the decline of Maria Callas’s career in the 1960’s. Sutherland always a gracious women was full of praise for Callas (Callas was polite in public but once privately said to a colleague ‘she is good but not me’).
Every great artist has a flaw and Sutherland’s was that in the effort to sing perfectly she didn’t always project the text clearly. Though some critics over emphasized this she worked with Bonynge to work on the flaw and this aspect of her performance was greatly improved. Sutherland started to take on the French repertoire which Bonynge had great knowledge of and enthusiasm for. The French roles she would take on would include the title role in Delibes Lakme, the three heroines in Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman and recordings of Gounod’s Faust and Thomas Hamlet. In the late 1960’s she and Bonynge discovered the tenor who could sing the great roles of Bel Canto with a skill as great as her and Horne’s, Luciano Pavarotti. They were soon to sing their celebrated roles in Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment where Pavarotti sings nine consecutive high C’s in his aria hence his moniker ‘King of the high C’S’ . Sutherland typical to her generous nature was not envious of Pavarotti’s fame in the least.
The 1970’s would bring on new challenges she took on the role of Puccini’s Turandot normally thought of as a role for dramatic soprano with great success as her recording with Caballe and Pavarotti attests to. She took another challenge when she took on the heavier dramatic Verdi roles like Leonora in Il Trovatore. Sutherland also has a taste for light music; she made a charming recording of Noel Coward songs and stared in many productions of Lehar’s Merry Widow. Bonynge and Sutherland also performed and recorded the more grandiloquent of Massenet’s operas like Esclarmonde and Le Roi de Lahore. She also rounded out in the 1970’s her portraits of Donizetti heroines with Lucreizia Borgia, Maria Stuarda and Anna Bolena. Sutherland also re-recorded many of her signature roles with Pavarotti.
Joan Sutherland retired in 1990. Her retirement spent mostly in Switzerland has been happy and contented. She is also a cultural icon in Australia for many years, a role that she and Bonynge take seriously. Sutherland has one of the great voices of the past century, she was considered an indifferent actress by some critics but as listeners this isn’t our concern. In fact preserved DVD’S of live performances show her to be a more than passable actress if not the equivalent of a Callas. Her rich recorded legacy is of amazing consistency and shows her sterling musicianship and craftsmanship. As we have mentioned she is a generous un temperamental colleague and as we have noted was along with Bonynge responsible for the launch of Pavarotti and Marylin Horne’s international career along with many others.
