Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Recommended Posts

So sorry to hear this. A loss for her family and for the world.

Thank you, dear Dame Joan, for sharing your gifts with us. We Callas fans were not always charitable over the years but we did recognize your talent and the debt owed to you and your husband by anyone who loves bel canto.

An interview from 2004.

"I'm not at all sorry to be out of the opera world as it exists today," she says. "I remember one of my last productions at the Met in the late '80s -- 'Il Trovatore' -- so bleak, so ugly, everybody in the dark, with swords clanking and ridiculous sets and columns sliding back and forth. Not long ago -- not at the Met, I'm happy to say -- there was a production of 'Faust' with people masturbating and defecating onstage in the final scene, while poor Marguerite is singing about Heaven. Horrible! There's this emphasis on everything that is vile -- whether or not it has anything to do with the opera itself -- and no attention paid to what is beautiful and noble."

Sutherland is not much happier with the new breed of singers. "I long for the [Renata] Tebaldis, the [Giulietta] Simionatos I remember from the 1950s, when my career was getting started," she says. "What wonderful artists they were! I don't think young musicians perfect their techniques in the way they used to, and that will make for a very short career unless you attend to it. Every so often, I'm told about a gifted young soprano, and when I finally get to hear her, she sounds wonderful, and then she's completely disappeared a year later."

Link to comment

I never had that privilege, Farrell Fan. I did hear her on bootlegs, and the quality of diction and emotional engagement could be much higher than you'd guess from some of the recordings. Not to mention the thrill of hearing that voice sail over the orchestra.

Link to comment

That quote jumped out at me too, cubanmiamiboy. Wise words, indeed.

They jumped out at me too, but I didn't find them wise, but rather exaggerated and not at all representative of opera as it exists today. Not so different from Norma Desmond's loss of silent pictures, as I see it.

There's this emphasis on everything that is vile -- whether or not it has anything to do with the opera itself -- and no attention paid to what is beautiful and noble.

In a general sense, there certainly is not, and I've never seen a single opera that had such scenes (which would be , at worst, indicated, mimed: There's no such thing as people actually 'masturbating and defecating onstage' in any Establishment opera house (or any other short of a brothel, I'm sure, and that's not opera). She's just talking about one production of 'Faust' here, and if she means it in a general sense, she's just inaccurate. Even if one does like DeFrutos ballets as Simon described to us in detail, those aren't representative of dance trends. For the rest, she just talks about a production of 'Il Trovatore' at the Met that she doesn't like, which is cool. Decades ago, people didn't like those sparse, scraped-bare sets of Wieland Wagner at Bayreuth.

And yet she does seem to be talking about 'the world of opera as it exists today', having used that phrase, and then giving two examples, neither of which is that serious, even if they aren't especially good (I've seen the 'Trovatore' she's talking about, and thought it was fine; I don't want to see any production of 'Faust', because I can't stand it).

I find it more disturbing to hear a great singer so inflexible about contemporary developments, because I've seen a lot of new opera in the last 20 years, and much of it is better than the productions she was singing in in her heyday. It reminds me also of film stars looking back on their careers and talking about 'before the X rating, when women wore pretty clothes', etc., meaning the 50s.

And then she comes up with this:

Sutherland is not much happier with the new breed of singers. "I long for the [Renata] Tebaldis, the [Giulietta] Simionatos I remember from the 1950s, when my career was getting started," she says. "What wonderful artists they were! I don't think young musicians perfect their techniques in the way they used to, and that will make for a very short career unless you attend to it. Every so often, I'm told about a gifted young soprano, and when I finally get to hear her, she sounds wonderful, and then she's completely disappeared a year later."

Making more generalizations out of a few examples, she sounds pretty dotty to me, old-fashioned in the truly archaic sense. And not surprising she doesn't 'long for' Maria Callas, whose personality was so much more interesting than hers was. In fact, even though her colorature singing was the best you could get, better than Beverly Sills's, she was not to me an especially charismatic performer as actress. I always liked her, and she was, along with Leontyne Price, probably the first opera singer I because familiar with because of frequent appearances on Bell Telephone Hour, but with her, it is mostly the brilliant and flexible vocal technique. The big square-jawed face is very theatrical and effective too, though.

And that's really unbelievable about the 'young musicians not perfecting their techniques as they used to', given that in all fields of classical music and dance, they perfect them MORE, if anything, than they used to. This goes for opera as well as ballet and concert performers, and is so obvious it is incredible to read this. What they are not doing is embodying 'auratic personas' as artists the way they were, and that is because this age allows very little of that. There is still some, but it's a small and shrinking population of artists. In ballet, there is Osipova, Hallberg, Gomes, Vishneva, but there are all the more Somovas and any number of other purely showy types of male dancers as well. Or better, since Somovas techniques is not considered exemplary (as well it shouldn't be), you have Ashley Bouder but no Suzanne Farrell, and you don't have Soloviev or Sizova. Something has been lost, but it's not fine technique, and it's not in opera either. But all singers who manage to get onto the Met stage, and all pianists and violinists who get onto the stage at Carnegie Hall have first-rate and highly-schooled virtuoso techniques.

Link to comment

A Sutherland performance of Semiramide in Boston, singing with Marilyn Horne, when she was not yet a big star, was one of those small but crucial life-changing experiences that committed me irrevocably to a love of the classical arts. I saw 4 performances of this team over a single week as a student-usher for Sarah Caldwell's Boston Opera. As a result, I bought her 2-record album, The Age of Bel Canto, also with Horne. I must have played that album a hundred times, singing along with the words printed on the jacket.

The tributes to her voice that I've been reading include two qualities that staggered me from that first performance: the warmth of her voice and the evenness of sound over a great range. I've been moved -- and deeply moved -- by her Norma and Lucia on stage, even though quite aware of the limits in dramatic expression.

What Sutherland actually did with her voice went beyond what anyone else could do. What she did not do .... well, there were others who could do that.

Patrick, as an older person I guess I make allowances for the querulousness of older artists who cannot adjust to the standards of a new performance world.. The feeling that "the world ain't what it used to be" hits most of us sooner or later. Speaking for myself only, I prefer to recall Sutherland's long and rich career and give her a pass on her opinions about new directions in the arts.

Link to comment

bart--i definitely give her a pass, and don't think it's an important matter when compared to her artistry, to say the least. It's just that some older artist DO say 'wise words'. Some here thought they were, I just don't there was anything wise about them. It had nothing to do with what I feel about her superb gifts, which are stellar.

Link to comment

In a general sense, there certainly is not, and I've never seen a single opera that had such scenes (which would be , at worst, indicated, mimed: There's no such thing as people actually 'masturbating and defecating onstage' in any Establishment opera house (or any other short of a brothel, I'm sure, and that's not opera). She's just talking about one production of 'Faust' here, and if she means it in a general sense, she's just inaccurate. Even if one does like DeFrutos ballets as Simon described to us in detail, those aren't representative of dance trends. For the rest, she just talks about a production of 'Il Trovatore' at the Met that she doesn't like, which is cool. Decades ago, people didn't like those sparse, scraped-bare sets of Wieland Wagner at Bayreuth.

I've never seen an opera perfomance with these type of elements but they absolutely do exist. Just not in the US. But they are common in many of the European house, especially the German and Spanish ones. Just for one example, Calixto Bieito, the Catalonian opera director has staged Ballo in Maschera with the opening scene set in a communal latrine, with the mens chorus all sitting on toilets, Abduction from the Seraglio with the female characters having their nipples sliced off, Don Giovanni with Anna and Octavio having sex on a barstool during Non Mi Dir, and the list goes on and on. It's quite common for director to shock their audiences in Europe thes days.

So Sutherland could paraphrase Anna Russell here..."I'm not making this up, you know..."

Here's one example

Want more details?

Pornographic and Scatalogical opera performances absolutely do exist, just not much in the US

Link to comment

But so what? That's still experimental opera to a great extent, not the big houses Sutherland sang in. Naturally, there's going to be pornographic imagery in all forms of art, dance, opera, you name it, and why not? Okay, she has a right not to like it even so--but those are never the big prestigious serious productions, and even in the experimental 'young director' things, it's not necessarily just to 'concentrate on the vile'. But that is still not a decent generalization about the most mainstream opera houses anywhere in the world, the most prestigious ones, at least on a regular basis. Not anymore that Kirov, NYCB, ABT, or POB or RDB has 'gone porno'.

Yes, more details if you want, although I didnt' watch that yet.

On the other hand, the thing about young musicians not mastering their techniques is not a matter of taste and opinion. It's just incorrect. She's picked out a singer who was temporarily famous, and left out Renee Fleming (nevermind her pazz/jop stuff. There are a lot of STUPENDA technicians out there, more than ever before.

Wow! Watched it, Mrs. Bengtsson is so HOT both vocally and looks-wise, I could deal with it, although I wasn't interested in the mess personally. I just don't find sex 'n' sadism stuff more offensive in general that other forms of 'updating', whether modern dress Shakespeare, Pelleas and Melisande, what have you, and they're usually some director's ego's brainchild, last a season, then everybody wants to see a real period performance of something.

And what I meant about pornography and scatology is that it's still going to have to be soft-core, not hard-core, that doesn't happen onstage in opera or ballet, and only occasionally in mainstream movies (as 'Pola X' and 'A Serbian Film', quite the scandal right now, and it's good.)

Link to comment
But so what? That's still experimental opera to a great extent, not the big houses Sutherland sang in. Naturally, there's going to be pornographic imagery in all forms of art, dance, opera, you name it, and why not? Okay, she has a right not to like it even so--but those are never the big prestigious serious productions, and even in the experimental 'young director' things, it's not necessarily just to 'concentrate on the vile'.

I think richard53dog's point was that in making her observation Sutherland wasn't a superannuated old lady talking out of her hat - these things were/are happening and yes, she had a right not to like it and feel out of sympathy with some new trends. No doubt age had something to do with that, but one hopes, at least I do, that a wish for nobility and beauty in the arts (among other qualities) is a timeless one.

A nice little story from a letter to the editor of The Australian.

An occasion when she and her husband, Richard Bonynge, were in Geneva to record some recherche French operatic repertoire from the 19th century was a great instance of this quality. She impressed the Orchestre de le Suisse Romande not only by the quality of her singing but by her lack of "temperament". They would record a track and while Bonynge disappeared to the control room to listen critically to the result she would concentrate on her needle-work until he returned, insisting that they re-record the piece.

After this happened about four times, Sutherland put her sewing aside and said, "Look here, Dickie. It wasn't me who dug this crap out of the Bibliotheque Nationale; it was you. So if you don't like the way I'm singing it, you can sing it your bloody self."

Link to comment

But that is still not a decent generalization about the most mainstream opera houses anywhere in the world, the most prestigious ones, at least on a regular basis. Not anymore that Kirov, NYCB, ABT, or POB or RDB has 'gone porno'.

And what I meant about pornography and scatology is that it's still going to have to be soft-core, not hard-core, that doesn't happen onstage in opera or ballet, and only occasionally in mainstream movies (as 'Pola X' and 'A Serbian Film', quite the scandal right now, and it's good.)

Not sure how the ballet companies got into this thread..... but

Barcelona (a house Sutherland certainly did sing in), Berlin, Stuttgart, and Madrid , just to pick a few examples , are all "mainstream" opera houses. And that's just for Bieito productions.

Here's a photo of the London Masked Ball with the guys on the toilets.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/culturevulture/archives/kenton_02ball3.jpg

No, not every production has these pornographic or scatalogical elements. But they are quite common in the European Opera Houses, and the big ones too.

This is the basis for Sutherland's comments and certainly she's from a different era but I for one could see clearly where her comments were coming from. She's certainly not picking needles from remote, 4th tier operatic haystacks; she was commenting on a fairly common phenomenon in European opera houses

Link to comment

Thanks for extra information on the European houses. I only hope that we get a chance to see these here. I think it's pretty logical why I brought up the major ballet companies, since i'd mentioned DeFrutos, and you were talking about pornography. Dance, with near naked, and certainly obviously revealed bodies, is much more obviously a place where the porno-saturated culture we live in would 'find a new home'. And I haven't noticed it at RB, NYCB, ABT of any of the Russians either, so maybe that will happen too.

The guys on the toilets are not very arresting, they remind me of Slavoj Zizek, the tedious faux-Marxist philosopher, being photographed sitting on a john--but with jeans on, which makes no sense. This at least makes sense, if they're going to use a tacky scene, reading the paper with their pants down. I didn't find this esp. compelling, nor did I find it 'vile'. It's acc. to how delicate your sensibilities are.

Yes, Sutherland was personally known to be unflappable, and there are many amusing stories of her repartee with Bonynge that I've heard over the years. She was charming and beautiful in a strange way, I remember catching her up close backstage at the Met around 1979.

Okay, sure, lots of people MUCH YOUNGER object to these unrespectable images in theater, dance and opera, but they're here to stay. Pornography is not going to go away, and probably some of the uses of it do work, even though some will never accept even the 'milder' explicit things, as we discussed when Ms. Kaufman went on and on about 'crotches cranked wide open', which is far worse written than anything you might have seen in one of those Balachine ballets--which was just beautiful female bodies overly extended in certain ways.

Most of those attempted-shock productions don't interest me personally, but they're certainly relevant to the obscene times we live in. But I don't think that they pose any threat to the 'noble and beautiful', and after a number of failed experiments, may sometimes even contribute to the furtherance of those same. To take it out of the sex-talk, many objected to the 'blood buckets' in the POB 'Medea', which was in the film. I thought these were extremely effective, and you wouldn't have seen them in the old days.

Link to comment

The comment about singers with great potential disappearing isn't that unusual in the opera world. There seemed to be an epidemic of it in the '80's and '90's, and it was often blamed on airline commuting, a generation that had grown up with with little rest between shorter and shorter engagements. 20 years ago, I think it had less to do with technique than with taking on the wrong rep and maybe the change from apprenticeships in small rep houses in Europe to conservatory training and piecing together a free-lance career. More recently, with an emphasis on physical appearance, there are singers who seemed strained by the demands of the bigger houses where they are now employed. Peter Gelb is accused of this constantly, but I thought it was very interesting that in "The Audition", the judging panel was looking for the big voices rather than the finished ones, and the judges called tiny Kiera Duffy's voice one for houses in Europe.

Sutherland may have sung often out of the Important House route, but particularly in the US, those houses aren't often small like the ones in Europe. Until last year, for example, singers in Dallas had to sing in the barn at the state fair grounds, with horrific acoustics, where even Ruth Anne Swenson occasionally sounded like the door was closed mid aria, and she was on the other side of the door.

Marilyn Horne spoke about Sutherland during one of the Sirius intermission features during last night's broadcast of the first performance of the new "Boris Godunov". Her voice was close to tears many times as she described their working relationship and their personal friendship, and it was very generous of her to speak so soon after Sutherland's death.

Link to comment
....that "the world ain't what it used to be" hits most of us sooner or later.

I have to agree with you bart. I haven't fallen in this trap yet (at least I hope not), but my age is rapidly getting to the level where I am at least susceptible :).

:off topic: I've often wondered why older people seem to indulge in this "the world ain't what it used to be" or "the younger generation has no respect" type of world view. It seems a pretty common occurrence. Fear of loss of control perhaps? Hindsight only remembers the good stuff? I'm going to try to resist this particular pitfall in the coming years. Wish me luck!

Link to comment

The comment about singers with great potential disappearing isn't that unusual in the opera world. There seemed to be an epidemic of it in the '80's and '90's, and it was often blamed on airline commuting, a generation that had grown up with with little rest between shorter and shorter engagements. 20 years ago, I think it had less to do with technique than with taking on the wrong rep and maybe the change from apprenticeships in small rep houses in Europe to conservatory training and piecing together a free-lance career.

.............................

Marilyn Horne spoke about Sutherland during one of the Sirius intermission features during last night's broadcast of the first performance of the new "Boris Godunov". Her voice was close to tears many times as she described their working relationship and their personal friendship, and it was very generous of her to speak so soon after Sutherland's death.

There are probably a number of reasons young singers bobble up and then a year or so later disappear. One is that the singers are noticed with a remarkable natural talent. Sometimes this "gift" is safely harnessed to a technique that enables the singer to use it without wrecking it. Other times, sadly, what came from nature is just used in a way that quickly dissipates it and what caused the notice in the first place has just vanished, or turned into something much less remarkable and more ordinary. It's a variation on the old "sing on the interest not the capital" thing.

Regarding Sutherland and Horne, Marilyn Horne is an extremely intelligent and very realistic woman. I believe Horne was at loose ends artistically and vocally when she came to Sutherland's (and Bonynge's) attention. They met when Sutherland was making her New York debut in a concert performance of Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda.

Horne had had some early success in Los Angeles, dubbing

Dorothy Dandridge in the film of Carmen Jones (when Horne was only 20) as well as other film work (King and I, etc) She also had a very busy career doing anonymous versions of hit parade standards. Someone like Kay Starr would have a big hit record and there would immediately appear no name knockoff's on cheap supermarket labels of the the same songs (with a bit of imitation of the original singer's style and approach). Horne admitted to supporting herself for a number of years with this kind of work but it really wasn't what she wanted to do.

So she sang for a number of years as a less than stellar soprano, doing everything from Wozzeck, to Musetta, to Marie in Daughter of the Regiment to NEdda in Pagliacci, making not much of a name for herself (recordings of some of these outings exist). And probably she was going the route of the singer who popped up as a young voice and then disappeared.

Horne sweated through the soprano role in Beatrice di Tenda in NYC and the Bonynge's made some gentle suggestions that perhaps Horne's best approach would be to abandon the soprano route and adopt instead some of the heroic bel canto repertory that was suitable for voices set a bit lower than average. Over the next few years Horne occasionally appeared opposite Sutherland but in the more successful mezzo roles of Arsace to Sutherland's Semiramide and Adalgisa to Sutherland's Norma.

Horne finally committed to a change in career tactics in the mid 60s. She was booked to appear at Carnegie Hall in the title role of Lucrezia Borgia, but became pregnant and cancelled the performance. Her replacement, a Spanish soprano named Montserrat Caballe had a huge success that night. But I think Horne had made an important decision at that point, believing, with the encouragement of Sutherland , that her could paradoxically make a bigger name for herself in the right roles for what the Italians called Donna Seconda (all those virtuoso bel canto roles that can be done by a lower voice partnering a higher soprano voice) than struggling along as an increasingly strangled soprano.

She got a lot of help and support (and bookings!) through the help of Sutherland and her husband and within a few years Horne had become a big star. So it was a big risk that she took but it worked out and not a little bit because of the Bonynges. Horne also claimed she was unable to trill but the Bonynges work with her until she had mastered this feat.

Now this kind of situation doesn't always work out in the long run. Jealousies crop out, feeling get hurt, and resentments arise and what was once a good partnership turns sour. But Horne, as I've suggested is very intelligent. As soon as it was practical, she unhitched her wagon from the Sutherland/Bonynge power train, but in a very smart and sensitive manner. After 1970 this "great pair" rarely appeared together, except on recordings and very high profile concerts. No feelings were hurt, the Bonynges sponsored other young singers and both the Bonynges and Horne went on to very long successful careers.

So I think a lot of Horne's take on this situation was that her relationship with Sutherland was a huge turning point in her career. And of course on a professional level the two worked together very well and there was a lot of mutual respect and admiration.

Sutherland may never have become "Sutherland" with the guidance and prodding of her husband. But similarly, I wonder if Marilyn Horne would have ever become "Marilyn Horne" without Joan Sutherland.

And circling back to the original opening of my (very long!) post , there is the sad case of the young singer with a great natural talent and without the right technique will wear away what nature has given, but then there is an important next step, that being having the right doors opened and the right opportunities being offered to start making those steps toward success and not falling back into the mists. After the young singer gets their vocal house in order, a helping hand towards opportunities makes a huge difference.

I'm guessing a lot of thoughts along these lines are part of the emotions Horne is going through with her old friend and partner's passing.

Link to comment
:off topic: I've often wondered why older people seem to indulge in this "the world ain't what it used to be" or "the younger generation has no respect" type of world view. It seems a pretty common occurrence. Fear of loss of control perhaps? Hindsight only remembers the good stuff? I'm going to try to resist this particular pitfall in the coming years. Wish me luck!

I, for one, do wish you luck! :D When I was 18, I made a list of things not to do when I got older; the list was written in stone, not to be questioned under any circumstances (as the Nike ad exhorts: Just do it). However...at 60, things have changed. And while I smile tenderly at the global sweep and brave assumptions of my youth, overall I value the wisdom of experience and hindsight more than those prior "memos to self," with their partial foundations. Age has a way of turning us into fogies, true...but it can also distill and identify that which is eternally valuable. I don't expect younger readers to agree! :wink: And it probably wouldn't even be appropriate for them to do so.

Link to comment

I'm told by opera fans able to compare that opera productions in the US are far more conservative than in Europe. I do my best to avoid the worst stuff by reading the reviews before I book, but for some performances you must book a long way in advance. I think I've mentioned this production on here before, but I still remember the awfulness of a Don Giovanni a few years ago at Glyndebourne (a very major house) that featured a stage filled with excrement and a last act feast where the guests fed on the entrails of a dead horse, literally pulling them from the carcass, to an accompaniment of audience boos and cries of Shame! Sutherland was absolutely right to object, anyone that cares about opera would.

As to singers of today being inferior, I don't altogether agree but think the outstanding ones are fewer in number than they were when Sutherland was at her peak.

Link to comment

I'm told by opera fans able to compare that opera productions in the US are far more conservative than in Europe.

Yes, the audiences in the US are far more conservative in terms of opera productions than in Europe, particularly in the German and Swiss houses, and increasingly in Spain.

The MEt and Lyric Opera of Chicago are perhaps the most conservative of all. An element of the MEt audience has lately been booing any new production that isn't strictly traditional, although this has sporadically been going on for years, it's been getting more extreme.

If it's a nontraditional opera, all bests are off, the director can do whatever he/she chooses and it may be excepted. But don't mess with Tosca!

There is an audience in the US for more edgy takes on even the most traditional works but often it's at war with the conservative factions.

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Gerard Mortier had actually taken over NYCO. He has a long

history of presenting very modern, concept driven opera stagings. Perhaps he would have even brought Calixto Bieito to NYC to stage something. And NYCO has/had(?) a more adventuresome audience than the MEt anyway, but even there I think extreme elements such as those of a scatalogical nature would have not been accepted.

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...