classical_hero
In whom I trust
Dame Joan Sutherland, perhaps the greatest ever Opera singer has died over the weekend. One of the truly great voices of our generation.
THE greatest soprano of her time, Joan Sutherland was blessed with formidable technique, a voice that brought her the title La Stupenda, and an unspoiled Australian nature that kept vanity and pretension at bay.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Sutherland's career was its longevity and her ability to adapt as her voice declined with age. Born with unusually strong vocal chords that gave her outstanding flexibility and comfort in the upper register, Sutherland was credited with helping revive the bel canto (beautiful singing) repertoire. Her middle range was rich, and in the low range she could reach deep mezzo notes.
Sutherland's contribution to opera in Australia, Europe and the Americas during the second half of the 20th century is unmatched by any other female performer.
Her father, William Sutherland, died suddenly at home in Sydney when Joan was six, leaving four children of his first marriage and two girls, Barbara and Joan, from his second marriage to Muriel Alston.
Muriel was a competent amateur mezzo-soprano who would often sing at home while Joan sat beneath the piano absorbing her mother's technique and nurturing dreams of becoming an opera singer. Sutherland went to Australia's oldest girls' school, St Catherine's at Waverley, not far from her home in Woollahra. She was a good student but too loud for the choir. She trained as an office worker and her first job was as a typist for a Sydney University laboratory.
In 1945, she won a scholarship for private musical tuition, astonishing those at her audition with the quality and strength of her voice. She needed to be stretched and her tutors pushed relentlessly. She thrived on the hard work.
She sang at local clubs for pocket money, and on one of those occasions, giving a performance for the ladies of the Queen Victoria Club, she met her future husband Richard Bonynge, a student at the NSW Conservatorium of Music who was accompanying her on the piano.
Sutherland was a big girl and it made her self-conscious. But she entered numerous singing competitions where success boosted her confidence. She built up her savings by singing at weddings and by winning a national competition.
By 1951, it was obvious to Sutherland and her mother that her ambition needed to go up a notch. And so they sailed for London with letters of introduction and a swag of dreams.
She attended the Royal College of Music Opera School and auditioned for Covent Garden where she was assessed as having a "good ring in the voice". She worked with Bonynge - who was struggling with his own direction in London - and after a second audition was found to have "unusual solidity". A third hearing at Covent Garden reached the conclusion she might make an understudy and become a useful member of the company. A week later, at her fourth audition, Sutherland was described as having "very good diction". She was offered a contract for the 1952-53 season paying £10 a week.
Her first Covent Garden performance was as the First Lady in The Magic Flute, Bonynge and her mother sitting in the front stalls. Later, The Times noted her "flexibility, power, brilliance and beauty of tone".
At this stage, Sutherland was considered to be a mezzo-soprano but Bonynge, her accompanists and others thought she had the potential to become a dramatic soprano.
The trouble was, Sutherland was a hopeless actor who had not been trained to create a stage presence. Drama training was sought, with mixed success. She also faced difficulties concentrating on her tuition and on memorising her lines.
In 1954, Sutherland and Bonynge were married, an event that was unexpected by their families and unplanned to the extent that details such as a wedding cake were overlooked. Their son, Adam, was born in 1956.
Opportunities were becoming more regular and Bonynge started to exert influence as he tried to guide his wife towards dramatic coloratura (elaborate ornamentation of melody) roles. When Covent Garden decided to perform Alcina by the great baroque composer G. F. Handel, Sutherland and Bonynge seized the chance.
Alcina was undoubtedly a turning point in Sutherland's career. It brought her significant critical acclaim while, perhaps more important, it established her direction and proved that coloratura roles represented her future in opera.
Covent Garden had been agonising over whether to present Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and whether Sutherland should be asked to take on the challenging role of Lucia. She studied the score for months and polished her Italian pronunciation as Lucia took over her life.
The evening of February 17, 1959, was a rare moment in operatic history, for it announced to the world a new star who shook her audience with her dramatic intensity and commanding voice. Joan Sutherland had arrived.
Recording contracts and offers from all over the world immediately landed in her letterbox.
In Italy to sing Alcina, Venetians went mad with delight, tore down La Fenice's flower decorations, threw them on to the stage and shouted "La Stupenda". In her autobiography A Prima Donna's Progress, Sutherland acknowledged with typical understatement the name that would accompany her for the rest of her life: "I was quite thrilled with my new title".
In 1961, Sutherland and Bonynge leased a villa in Switzerland, a place by Lake Maggiore that allowed quick access to Milan and other European opera houses. And as a regular sufferer of sinusitis and throat ailments, the climate was far better than the damp airs of London. Switzerland was eventually to become their home.
Also in 1961, she made her debut at the Metropolitan in New York where she sang Lucia and was mobbed afterwards on the street. In the opera house, the audience refused to cease their ovations. At the party in a hotel, an extra room had to be hired for the flowers.
It wasn't surprising that Sutherland succumbed to exhaustion and injury to her back. She had been away from Australia for nearly 12 years and had planned a much-anticipated homecoming. When she cancelled, Australians felt that they had been denied the chance to pay homage.
Until 1963, Sutherland and Bonynge had rarely shared a stage in performance. But by now, his understanding of her voice was complete and he had exerted considerable influence on her repertoire, so it seemed only natural that he should begin conducting the orchestra while his wife sang.
The pair, determined to make amends for cancelling their Australian tour, arranged to bring the finest gathering of operatic talent the country had seen (including the then relatively unknown Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti).
Arriving in the winter of 1965, Sutherland was feted wherever she turned.
After 10 years on the international circuit and approaching 40, signs of deterioration in a soprano's voice might have become noticeable, except that in Sutherland's case she was clearly warmer and more refined. Nevertheless, she was well advised to reduce her workload.
In 1968, they moved permanently to Switzerland buying a chalet near Geneva, next door to the entertainer Noel Coward who had become a family friend.
In the years following, Sutherland sang many lighter roles but kept in touch with her trademark works and travelled wide of traditional operatic boundaries by singing in South America.
After a production of Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann in New York, Sutherland and Bonynge headed back to Sydney in 1974 to perform the production at the freshly opened Opera House. Critics judged her performance as the work of a complete dramatic soprano.
Bonynge had been appointed musical director of the Australian Opera which meant Sutherland's presence in her homeland became more frequent. It also meant more trans-continental travelling as she fulfilled her obligations in London and New York.
By 1988, her appearances began to feel like farewells as audiences realised it would all eventually have to come to an end. The Merry Widow in Dallas turned out to be her last US appearance, while a selection of arias in Newcastle was her last in England - except for a brief farewell at Covent Garden.
She and Bonynge went on holiday in 1989, a trip through Greece and Turkey which made Sutherland realise she was losing interest. All that remained was to find a suitable finale for Australia.
It was a production of Les Huguenots in which she sang the part of Marguerite de Valois. All eight performances at the Sydney Opera House were sold out as Australians flocked to bid adieu.
In retirement Sutherland and Bonynge lived in Switzerland where she gardened (as much as her knees allowed) and worked on her needlepoint and knitting, as she always had in her dressing room. She never sang in public again, though she used to "hum around the house". She adjudicated in competitions but stayed away from opera.
"I think I'm a bit of a dropout."
Joan Sutherland received many honours, including companion of the Order of Australia in 1975, Dame of the British Empire in 1979 and the Order of Merit (an honour within the Queen's personal gift and therefore rare) in 1991.
She is survived by her husband, Richard Bonynge, her son, Adam, and her grandchildren.
