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All the live recordings have a palpable zest and this excitement that the '64 recording (that I cherish) lack.

Her final Norma was in 1994!!!! NO ONE HAS EVER SUNG THAT ROLE FOR 31 YEARS, GOD IN HEAVEN!!❤❤❤❤❤❤

Wonderfol❤

Her Eb's and E's could be great but D6 was her note. The higher notes became less outstanding as she aged but the D's got bigger and more beautiful. Her high D's in Anna Bolena at around 60 were not to be believed. Sutherland's voice, always big, got bigger as she aged. I think her best note overall was a D in Maria Stuarda in a Concert for Darwin at age 45. It was simply massive with many lower overtones mixed in. People who saw her live said there were many more overtones in her voice that recordings were never able to pick up. Sutherland said that her voice switched at B5 from being forward to shooting right out of the roof of her roof of her mouth into the back of her heard. You can hear how they sound different.

Certainly the top D was one of her best notes. I particularly remember their gleaming quality in Lucia di Lammermoor in her final London performances 1985.

How wonderful Joan was, can anyone tell me what Franco Corelli thought of her, I would love to know.

I heard Sutherland sing many times, starting when I was 7 years old, the last when I was 24 (in 1987). I saw her many times through the 70s. While I missed her science fiction period in the 60s (and the recordings tell as much of the tale as they can as most who heard her then say that you just don't know what it was like to hear her live then from the recordings) in the 70s what was notable was that the voice was not just large, it was everywhere. It was sitting on your shoulder. It sounded like it came out of her mouth, her ears, and the back of her head. I think Anna Netrebko summed it up best when it came to Sutherland's Norma: "I was recently in the Met store, I came in there, and somebody was singing Norma just perfect! I cannot say any bad word about this singing. I said, who is this? Joan Sutherland.” . . . . "I don’t know how she’s singing. It’s just like flute playing. Perfect sound, beautiful, everything is free. I think this is a voice, one in a century like that.”

My favorite is Buenos Aires when Cossotto tries to compete on the last note. It's comedy. Sorry dear, nobody can hear you.

ese dominio de la fuerza vocal..es indescriptiblemente alucinante.............................hoy dia......en el 2022..........no existe semejante poder..........................aunque tengamos mas milones de habitantes.....................este poder........no ha podido ser igualado.........................en algun sentido.................esta mujer...............era de otro mundo.......................

un volcan sonoro.........................

Vancouver Opera kept that brick red cloak from her first Norma production ( I was in the audience opening night) and years later I got to put it on. It didn't give me a high D! :)

Misschien klein detail dat ik er nooit iets over hoor of lees maar waarom kan zij niet voor de hoge D zoals 2a3 andere sopranen en zoals t staat geschreven en slaat zij dat over , te moeilijk?

She was astonishing. Just great singing and humility!

Love how Pavarotti is turning the pages as if he can read music!

She was the perfect voice for the nuclear age.

She sings for the Angels now.

LO APLASTA TODO.............................

ME ENCANTA ESTA LOCURA CANTANDO.......................ES DEMENCIAL...................ABSOLUTAMENTE.........................INCREIBLE.................

Quien es la Mezzo del 69 En Buenos Aires?? Cossotto???

Cossotto was a voice.Not an artist. Observe how indifferrent & unmusical she is in Samson et Dalila with G.Chauvet. They are both vocally perfect ,but so boring ,because of their lack of expression & phrasing(what she's doing here is totally ridiculous)

It's incredible that Sutherland blows away the great Pavarotti and Horne at 7:32! I saw them all many times, but never at the same time, and only Suth/Pav once in Trovatore.

LA PROFUNDIDAD DE SUS AGUAS ES MAYOR QUE SU ALCANCE VOCAL..........................CANTANDO...........

Why does she never sing the high D at the climax with the chorus? Little disappointed

High Ds in Norma...?

testament to all the "nay-sayers" that Sutherland was brilliant

I was in the chorus in San Francisco for both the 72 and 82 performances. That D was absolutely HUGE. ON stage with all the others it was hard to hear, but one night I skipped out into the house (in the highest balcony) and it was absolutely mind boggling how huge and magnificent that note was. The audience went absolutely crazy each and every performance.

She clobbered Cossotto in the 1969 Norma!

Lol what adalgisa is holding B’s under Joan’s D? She’s like IM ALSO HERE HI 😂 At least D’s the 5th scale degree so with the 1/5/1/5/1 etc. it makes sense, but singing a B is the ultimate attention grab lol

The one and only.

That high D from 1963 was MAMMOTH!

I love how Pavarotti looks at Sutherland so relaxed, then looks at Horne's score and start singing rapidly xD

Please tell me you have the complete video of Sutherland Pavarotti and horne in 1981!

I love Sutherland .... not a big fan of Norma though. Franco Corelli was the best Polione... And why did that cow, Cossotto, ruin it in Buenos Aires! What a hideous sound she made.

The pictures reveal one very interesting aspect. The final Normal here was treated as though it was a Baroque opera by the director and costumer. This completely negates the change in opera that the three great bel canto composers were attempting. They wanted the story to be the focus with the emotions of the characters to be specific to them not, as in Baroque opera representations of single overriding emotional states. The way Sutherland is costumed [and it you look at archival photos, the other characters as well, this seems to be a Baroque opera or simply a concert performance. However, it is neither it is a staged performance. What a shame that even Sutherland, at the time of this performance, the greatest living exponent of Norma had to give in to the uninformed and unmusical preferences of the stage director and the costumer. pathetic in terms of respect for opera as drama. This is not Sutherland's fault as it has become the norm for outsiders to opera to overtake and devalue the most important aspects of the opera [drama in music] for all kinds of weird stagings that often actually contradict the music and libretto.

In the Buenos Aires sequence the harmony between the voices is thrilling. So dissonant and haunting.

Georg Lang? Parnassus?

This is quite fascinating from many perspectives. It shows the size, consistency, flexibility and longevity of Sutherland's voice, after all in the Detroit one she is 63. While, as some say, others might have been more dramatic physically or stylistically, this is the ultimate soprano role and Sutherland mastered every musical aspect of it. However, one of the most fun things to hear is the one where Cossotto is singing the Adalgisa and sings an interpolated [badly] high note right before Sutherland's D. Cossotto had one of the largest mezzo voice of the 20th century and she simply disappears once Sutherland goes up to the D. No one usually dared attempt to upstage her vocally and in this instance she demonstrates why.

So astounding not only for her incredible virtuosity, but her vocal longevity! What other soprano of modern times could sustain a role like Norma for so many years!

una voz llena de atmosfera .......................totalmente fuera de todo contexto cantor..............ni en el barroco...........ni en el preromanticismo.ni en el romanticismo.........ni el neoclasisismo voval..........y mucho menos en el modernismo y lo contemporaneo....................ella tenia un aurea vocal.....imposible de catalogar....a todas sus edades de canto.....desde las finuras llenas de harmonicos imposibles....hasta el progresivo oscurecimiento de la voz.............que aumentaba aun asi y todo el encanto.............del pasado..............paralelo al encanto de su presente...........maduro.........una pasada de voz..........que todabia tengo en estudio................esa osadia...vocal...........de una exquisitez.................indescriptible...hasta el ultimo dia en el que se retiro...............VIVA LA GRANDISIMA JOAN SUTHERLAND..................

I wish her master class where talks about her plinth was required watching for students. It served her very well!

She always did have a thrilling High D but unfortunately High notes are only 1/4 of Norma. Still, she’s one of the better ones

The incomparable Joan Sutherland.

Thank you so much, very interesting.

compare the '63 at 0.31 to the '89 at 8.57... 26 years later the voice is heavier, maybe a little flat - but that D is still rock solid! What a technique!

joan sutherland the greatest divaaa everrrrr

según cada cual ......hace su papel..................pero Sutherland...es......la suprema............la protagonista.............y a un estilo u otro.....todas las demás....no les queda mas remedio que hacer lo que les corresponde..............

impresionante................las actuaciones............de las sopranos y las mezzos......en su actuar ante ella.............esta .....simple que unas y otras tienen su personalidad...pero terinan sabiendo cual es su papel.....

I'm here on behalf of La Superba, Montserrat Caballé, and the 1984 London recording with La Stupenda and Luciano Pavarotti. Thank you very much for this recording. I did not know she performed it as late as 1989 in Detroit. Very classy acknowledgement at the end of the video.