#ipuritani

[joansutherlandfan]

🚨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.

[lastnightatthemet]

[joansutherlandfan]

"New Triumph for Joan Sutherland: LONDON, Wednesday - Australian soprano Joan Sutherland, received ecstatic praise from The Daily Express critic for her performance in the opera I Puritani at the opening of the Glyndebourne Festival in Sussex last night. The critic said Miss Sutherland's performance brought 'rare splendor' to the festival opening. Her purity of tone and expressive color specially made de aria 'Qui la voce' something long to treasure." The Canberra Times, May 26, 1960. • Joan and tenor John Alexander sings an excerpt of "Vieni fra queste braccia". *Stick till the end for a surprise. SPOILER: High notes!

[lastnightatthemet]

[lastnightatthemet]

[lastnightatthemet]

[lastnightatthemet]

[joansutherlandfan]

#MADMONDAY

Elvira with 20 years from each other...

"[...] It was an exciting evening, and it is no disservice to the other participants to give Miss Sutherland most of the credit. For, where most of them were good, she was spectacular. And it must be said that when she sings, it is an event and realized as such by the audience. Something of the glamour and electricity of a vanished age of prima donnas stalks the house when she is in action. [...]" The New York Times, 14 February 1964

Photo: Elvira from a performance at ROH, London. Circa 1964.

*Decca recording of I Puritani from 1973.

"[...] This 'Puritani' performance should have been an object lesson for young singers, demonstrating that the combination of a strong technique and intelligent career management can preserve a superior voice into what for any singer must be termed very late maturity. [...]" Donal Henahan for The New York Times, 15 November 1986

Photo: Joan as Elvira from a performance of Bellini's I Puritani in Sydney, circa 1985.