Dame Joan Sutherland's Double Staccati and exquisite Trils (Mireille and Nedda)

Disclaimer - I own nothing

[@jmiller05]

I hope people realise how difficult those double staccati are. The equivalent of doing a back flip on a motorbike on a tightrope.

[@LohengrinO]

u are the first person who mentions them :D

[@jmiller05]

Am I the first person to actually listen? :P. The difficulty and potential peril in those stacatti are endless and yet she sings them so liberally with no effect on the rest of the vocal line. This is the contrast between a superhuman coloratura like Sutherland and a good coloratura like Caballe in your previous video. Sutherland sings the staccati completely within her means whereas Caballe sounds like she is singing difficult staccatti. Callas and Sutherland only revealed the difficulty of coloratura by how easily they produced it.

[@LohengrinO]

it is all about being born with a Gene Superiority inside you :D (and I agree about many people not listening at all...)

[@LohengrinO]

plus and Im sure you ll agree on this, sometimes the sense that someone is having a bit of difficulty into singing something adds more excitement in the final result (when she succeeds ofc)... Effort is always rewarded

[@jmiller05]

Lohengrin O Exactly, when they push themselves to the extremes of the voice and make it sound miraculous it's amazing singing. However a lot of singers push themselves to limits where they don't have the notes lol. Not naming any names *cough* Scotto *cough*

[@marshmallow3253]

I just recently got into opera and it seems like every week I discover a different Sutherland recording to be obsessed with lol

[@LohengrinO]

she was Sensational

[@sirdicaudore]

Sutherland and Bonynge said in an interview that Tetrazzini's singing in this aria (in Italian "D'amor messaggera") was the most spectacular coloratura singing ever!

[@ThomasDawkins88]

That sounds like a case when Sutherland might have said "I think I sing it decently..."

[@Twisterjoe]

This set of French Arias is what introduced me to Sutherland when I was 18. An acquaintance had it on cassette, and played it in the car often. I developed a taste for perfection of sound and musicality with impeccable balance and proportion. Find a note that is out of line with the rest in color, volume or duration anywhere. I challenge anyone. There is no ego . Only music.

[@MrQbenDanny]

VIVA LA JOAN!!!! When she sang this in Texas oil began gushing up from the Earth.

[@LohengrinO]

it is unbelievable the degree of easiness

[@MrQbenDanny]

Lohengrin O "UNBELIEVABLE", is the key word here. In my youth I spent 2 weeks in the Amazon jungle with friends, not ONE of the thousands of birds singing ever did any JOAN trills.

[@LohengrinO]

In the Diomedes-Petsalis Callas biography there is a story about Callas when teenager touched the throat of her songbird to realize the way it was producing its trills... her mother claims, that afterwards she began trilling so loud that the Songbird fainted (Im sure there is added salt here but...)

[@MrQbenDanny]

Lohengrin O HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA LOL!!!! Mrs. Kalagarapolous was serving an extra portion of Moussaka with the story. The one I heard fainted, was Tebaldi during Maria's flute section in her Scala Lucia opening.

[@BellaFirenze]

I just listened to Amelita Galli-Curci's version of "O légère hirondelle" and then I listened to Luisa Tetrazzini. Nice versions. This one is extraordinary. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

[@LohengrinO]

do they execute the double staccati?

[@rakellcolotta3675]

This is why I love her so!

[@drnivek]

I have heard a lot of Mireilles, bit never heard the double staccati so clearly sung. I'm amazed. And I am not usually a Sutherland fan.

[@LohengrinO]

I personally havent heard them before

[@Tantraloverful]

Sensational, exemplary, makes you fall in love with La Stupenda, and Opera art, all over again.

[@highbaritone]

I think Sutherland was at her best here in 1967. The whole two disc set was wonderful. This aria has always amazed me with the size of her voice singing what has mostly been sung by small voiced sopranos. Nothing wrong with that, I am not a big voiced baritone. I sure wish I had been though. She, like all the greats, was a wonder. As the Australians loving called her, “Joyce Wonderland”. Again you have amazed me by picking this out to post. I like being amazed. ❤️

[@LohengrinO]

I chose the first aria because of the UNBELIEVABLE double staccati in 1:03 and the second because I searched for it and found only a fragment of it from Homoclassicus that didnt contain the trills..

[@highbaritone]

Lohengrin O thank you again. ❤️

[@Homoclassicus]

This album is from 1969, I believe. And, yes, I think it was her best album together with (of course) The Art of the Prima Donna.

[@multimill]

@@Homoclassicus what is the name of this album please?

[@ThomasDawkins88]

@@multimill Romantic French Arias, I believe.

[@dragoslavaleksic6328]

as always Bonynge is fantastic.... always forgoten but much better than others...

[@krowapaulinka4351]

No one like her ❤

[@laylaibrahim1552]

This is so wonderful, thank you so much for posting.

[@lavozporexcelencia]

En estas arias tan cercanas al bel canto Joan Sutherland es imbatible. En el vals de Gounod es simplemente maravillosa y el aria de Nedda evidencia la levedad de un pájaro.

[@JosSalinas]

Absolutely incredible. WOW.

[@christophecesar4761]

Gorgeous even of the music of the first piece is almost as little form Gounod as the words from Barbier and Carré 😏

[@natanaelgorrin9473]

Sonido cristalino en la primera aria, los trinos y florituras magníficos; fuera de cualquier comparación y realmente siento que la Stupenda y la ópera francesa son una excelente combinación, pero en el verismo con respeto pienso no cuaja, Nedda no es sencilla, es una mujer frustrada por un lado y esperanzada por otro y eso no queda plasmado en esta interpretación.

[@papaki88]

Very nice :)

[@LohengrinO]

notice the double staccati? they are extraordinary: 1:04

[@robertmarusic7781]

Beautiful singing, no doubt about it, but the words, meaning .... well...I was referring to Nedda

[@karlheinzkratz8987]

Ich höre zu und bin wirklich fassungslos über Sutherlands unglaubliche Leistung. Wer sollte das heute so singen können? Frau Netrebko, die letztlich auf ARTE als die Sängerin des Jahrhunderts gepriesen wurde? Einfach lächerlich eine solche Vorstellung. Es gibt heute keine Sängerin die Sutherland gleichkommt. So einfach muss das gesagt sein. In Deutschland hat man sie leider nicht oft hören können. Anfang der 1970iger Jahre in Hamburg, als Liebermann dort Intendant war, konnte man sie erleben. Andere Intendanten waren weniger interessiert , was ein großer Fehler war.

[@nikkooss1]

triple staccati over here ! kzbin.info/www/bejne/eKfapaOKobx0oNk

[@LohengrinO]

OMFG I never thought that would be possible... and I have never heard this lady before...the staccati are fantastic the rest of the voice though not good...

[@nikkooss1]

Lohengrin O Indeed! I also like dessay's version, which I can't find on utube anymore....

[@vxhorusxv]

THAT WAS INSANE

[@Leanrosso]

She should have recorded I Pagliacci!!!

[@LohengrinO]

I think she has, no?

[@Leanrosso]

@@LohengrinO Por supuesto!

[@esuna6352]

You can really tell that her singing switch was really on in this recording. Playfully brilliant, but as usual, I can't understand a word she sings :D

[@LohengrinO]

notice the double staccati... unique ornament... I dont recal hearing such a thing from anyone else

[@esuna6352]

And most notably how she playfully clever she delivers it! I wonder if Callas sang this aria on record

[@LohengrinO]

you mean Mireille's? nope

[@markdarenvillanueva7740]

Callas' trills are way better and more EXPRESSIVE in qual fiamma than Sutherland's.

[@LohengrinO]

for some strange reason she does them very fast and go away instead of holding them a bit :D

[@Homoclassicus]

Hmm it's this kind of comment that leaves me thinking in profound philosophy: so what? Even if that were true, how does it matter? I got so bored of this "Opera as F1" mentality.

[@Homoclassicus]

Actualy, I just HATE when the soprano indulges herself too much holding the trills in this simple, girlish aria as if it were some kind of grand virtuosistic spectacle. "Look, I can hold my trills long, longer!" LOL I think her trills here are just the perfect thing that the music requires.

[@LohengrinO]

u mean like Sutherland does it all the time? :D

[@Homoclassicus]

Yes, not in any way more often than early Callas (not to mention of the dozens of interpolated unwritten and unasked for high notes, as you of course know). But they were both right doing that: Armida, Leonora or Lucia ARE NOT the simple, poor and naturalistic Nedda in a late 19th century verismo opera by Leoncavallo. Everything in taste and elegance should depend on the context and circumstance.