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joansutherlandfan · 8 months

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Remembering the greatest of the tenors and Joan's close friend - Luciano Pavarotti (12 October 1935 - 6 September 2007).

[…] "Going to Australia with Joan, first of all, I've learned to be a very serious professional singer and from her particularly, I learn to breath, who is the most important thing, but the most difficult. More than anything, I think the technique is perfect, I think it's probably the most incredible technique of all the time I would say." […]

Excerpt taken from the documentary "Pavarotti - 2019" by Ron Howard.

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gordomes · 5 years

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2018 - Outubro

Belém

obra em exposição no MAAT

“La Stupenda” (2001) de Vasco Araújo

#gordomes #woman #lastupenda #vascoaraujo #lisbon

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thomasoutt · 7 years

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#AutographsForTheAges presents #JoanSutherland (1926-2010) #LaStupenda, #DramaticColoraturaSoprano. Also called the #VoiceOfTheCentury. In #TheArtOfThePrimaDonna, she pays tribute to 16 women whose careers in #Opera helped pave the way for her & those who have come after her. While any thoughts expressed about the emotionally charged & volatile subject of who was the greatest #Diva during any given time period, her voice was acclaimed for clarity & magnificence of pure tone. In person, she was delighted to meet fans & she was adored throughout the world of #VocalMusic. For anyone wishing a decent introduction to the repertoire of #BelCanto, this is the starting point, and you can't get much better than this lady from #Australia. May her glorious voice continue to inspire! (at Tower Records)

#theartoftheprimadonna #voiceofthecentury #vocalmusic #joansutherland #autographsfortheages #belcanto #lastupenda #opera #dramaticcoloraturasoprano #diva #australia

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joansutherlandfan · 8 months

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“When one is singing high and loud it’s as though one is in light air, high upon a mountain. I feel a lightness and dizziness. Exhilaration too. I’ve never smoked marijuana, but I fancy it might be the same sort of feeling.”

Joan Sutherland

Portrait as Lucia di Lammermoor. Feb 1959.

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joansutherlandfan · 10 months

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"I was intrigued with the role at the outset, because of the association with my Scots fore bears. I've always had a soft spot for Mary Stuart and I rather thought she was put upon too much - she was a very much misused woman. It gives me the greatest pleasure to, as it were, throw the book at Queen Elizabeth in this production." Joan Sutherland on her debut as Maria Stuarda at the San Francisco Opera on November 1971.

Bonynge's score was a more "complete" version, based on Malibran's performance at La Scala in 1835. We can notice Joan has a different approach to this role. Here a performance from 1977, Joan sings the final cadenza of "D'un cor che muore".

#classicalmusic #opera #operasinger #operahouse #composer #gaetanodonizetti #mariastuarda #marystuart #dramatic #coloratura #soprano #joansutherland #lastupenda #diva #primadonna #belcanto #1970s

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joansutherlandfan · 2 months

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#MADMONDAY

"I predict that if Maria Callas, now thirty four, goes on performing at the present rate, she will have left no professional singing voice by the time she is forty. Joan Sutherland... will, within five years, be acclaimed as famous an international star as Maria Callas is now, but she will no longer be a member of the Covent Garden Company." Noël Goodwin

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By the time Noël said that, he did not know that Joan's doctor had ordered her into hospital because of further ear abscesses, a danger of mastoid and even some lung damage. Joan refused to go until she met her engagement to sing in six performances of Lucia di Lammermoor, so the specialist reserved a hospital bed for her.

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Lucia di Lammermoor - Teatro alla Scala - 1961.

#soprano #classicalmusic #opera #dramatic #primadonna #diva #belcanto #coloratura #joansutherland #lastupenda #luciadilammermoor #gaetanodonizetti #madscene #madmonday

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joansutherlandfan · 11 months

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"I was really flabbergasted. Here was this tall, redheaded Brünhilde type girl standing beside me."

[...] "Miss Sutherland and her husband arrived at my salon. I came in to welcome them, and was impressed by her presence. As we said hello, her six-foot frame towered over me. She had a delightful smile and a twinkle in her eye, and her bright red hair was a wonderful frame for her creamy white skin. We began to chat about when and where she would perform. I was really flabbergasted. Here was this tall, redheaded Brünhilde type girl standing beside me. 'What would you like me to design for you?' 'A black dress with a neckline not too low and long sleeves, you know, just nice, simple and black,' Sutherland replied. 'But you have such extraordinary coloring. Why would you want me to do a boring black dress?' 'Well, because it would make me look thinner, smaller, you know, not so big,' she responded. 'But you’re enormous! I could never make you look smaller. No, we will make you look bigger, grander, bolder. We will make you look stupendous!' You can tell I was very brash and young at the time, or I never would have dared say such a thing. Sutherland and Bonynge laughed. And I laughed, embarrassed by my boldness. But still, I found she had a great sense of humor. And that quality was wonderful, made her easier to work with, and such fun for young designer." [...] Arnold Scaasi, fashion designer.

The gown was to a special concert conducted by maestro Leonard Bernstein, Philharmonic Hall on 26 March 1963.

#soprano #classicalmusic #opera #dramatic #primadonna #diva #belcanto #coloratura #joansutherland #lastupenda #maestro #leonardbernstein #concert #redhead #operasinger #operahouse #1960s

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joansutherlandfan · 1 year

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Today's #tbt go back to November of 1952, Joan was just a newcomer at the opera house team. She was lucky enough to be in the cast (as Clothilde) of Norma with the legends - the mezzo Ebe Stignani and soprano Maria Callas at the height of her powers. Joan always said Callas, despite her temperament, was very nice to her. And these excerpts show us this side:

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[...] Callas was easy to work with and appreciatively considerate of others. As she and Joan stood together in the wings on the opening night, whilst Ebe Stignani sang the part of Adalgisa, Callas, enormous arms folded, said: "Please be my eyes, Joan. Make sure I'm in the right position for the steps." Almost blind, without her glasses, Callas had paced everything out in rehearsal, but it was useless her counting paces, as she moved across the stage, if she started off slightly in the wrong direction and so strode briskly into the orchestra pit. Stignani was singing superbly and Callas and Joan listened contentedly together. Suddenly Callas hissed: "God, I should've done a pee before I came up. This great long scene... Ah well!" Her duet Mira o Norma with Stignani was expected to be the highlight of the performance. "I must sing it down for Stignani, "Callas murmured regretfully, well aware of how brilliantly she would have been able to sing it 'up'; but knowing also that this was a duet and that both tradition and Stignani's voice were to be respected utterly. Callas listened again; and then said: "God, how she can sing! [...]" Taken from Joan's biography by Russell Braddon.

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joansutherlandfan · 6 months

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Joan Sutherland was born on this day (7 November 1926 - 10 October 2010), let's celebrate the anniversary of this woman who conquered the world with her voice and charisma. "La Stupenda" - how they called her, which reluctantly accepted any title. The heaven is in party! And that's how I want to remember her - giving one of her contagious giggles!

#soprano #classicalmusic #opera #dramatic #primadonna #belcanto #diva #coloratura #joansutherland #lastupenda #1970s #otd #giggles

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joansutherlandfan · 11 months

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🚨For fun!🚨 Joan Sutherland is able to put the most asleep volcano in activity with her high D!

[...] "Joan wanted to sing in the school choir but was told her voice was too loud and drowned out the rest of the singers. She began to lead a more solitary life and became increasingly involved with music." [...] Brian Adams - Joan's biographer.

#soprano #classicalmusic #opera #dramatic #primadonna #diva #belcanto #coloratura #joansutherland #lastupenda #highnotes #vincenzobellini #ipuritani #operahouse #operasinger

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joansutherlandfan · 7 months

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Remembering the legendary soprano

Maria Callas

(2 December 1923 - 16 September 1977)

"I don't need the money, dear. I work for art." Maria Callas

*Here, Callas went to the dressing room to greet Joan Sutherland in the role of Queen Marguerite di Valois in Les Huguenots. La Scala, April 1962.

"It was a shock, a wonderful shock. You just got shivers up and down the spine. It was a bigger sound in those earlier performances, before she lost weight. I think she tried very hard to recreate the sort of 'fatness' of the sound which she had when she was as fat as she was. But when she lost the weight, she couldn’t seem to sustain the great sound that she had made and the body seemed to be too frail to support that sound that she was making. Oh, but it was so exciting. It was thrilling. I don’t think that anyone who heard Callas after 1955 really heard the Callas' voice." Joan Sutherland

#soprano #classicalmusic #opera #dramatic #primadonna #diva #belcanto #coloratura #joansutherland #lastupenda #mariacallas #callas #1960s #quotes

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joansutherlandfan · 8 months

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#tbt from the MetOpera...

...Joan was afraid to sing the "sleepwalking scene" on a walkway too high without hand guards under a gloomy illumination. Bing after a long conversation convinced her.

*The high was around 5m from the stage!

#soprano #classicalmusic #opera #dramatic #primadonna #diva #belcanto #coloratura #joansutherland #lastupenda #metopera #1963 #lasonnambula #vincenzobellini

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joansutherlandfan · 8 months

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#MadMonday ! The day that drive us to madness. (Monday didn't finished yet, at least in my time zone).

"No other soprano of our time produces such steady streams of mellifluous, unforced tone or handles so securely the florid embellishments of bel canto style." Donal Henahan (music critic), November 1982.

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joansutherlandfan · 8 months

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"What can I say about Joan Sutherland?A mega star, an icon, La Stupenda. She was all those and more. But to me, she was a real person and talked to me especially when I performed in 'IlTrovatore' with her. I really got to know her. She became a real friend and helped me enormously. I shall never forget her kindness and words of support when I first sang for the Company in 1983." Kenneth Collins (tenor and fan).

#classicalmusic #opera #operasinger #operahouse #portrait #quotes #baroque music #belcanto #dramatic #coloratura #soprano #dame #joansutherland #lastupenda #diva #primadonna #1960s

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joansutherlandfan · 8 months

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Which is your favorite Disney princess? Mine is Joan Sutherland!

"This is the last thing I saw Joan sing live at St. John's Smith Square in London in 1989. She sang the wrong cadenza halfway through the aria. Made a face and said 'Lost!' Of course the audience loved it and we got to hear all over again." @jonnyboyblue2 (fan)

The aria:

#classicalmusic #opera #operasinger #operahouse #belcanto #soprano #dramatic #coloratura #dame #joansutherland #lastupenda #diva #primadonna #1960s #Spotify

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joansutherlandfan · 8 months

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"Whilst in London, I managed to get a ticket for Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia and managed to sit near legendary soprano Dame Eva Turner. This great singer was crying tears of happiness when Dame Joan sang her final aria. Flowers were coming from all directions and Dame Eva stood with the rest of us in tribute to our dear Joan. Being Australian, I am proud of this incredible lady."

Ronald Cork (fan)

Joan sings the fiendish vocal line from Lucrezia Borgia's final aria "Era desso il figlio mio." She departs from a low Bb3 to attack an Ab5 (in 'Capo') and Bb5 (in 'Strale') handling with all the scales and trills. La Stupenda indeed!

*Design of her costume by Michael Stennet.

#soprano #classicalmusic #dramatic #opera #primadonna #belcanto #lastupenda #joansutherland #coloratura #diva #operasinger #operahouse #lucreziaborgia #gaetanodonizetti #1980s #royaloperahouse #highnotes #aria

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