The Art of the Prima Donna
|
Our Price: $23.98 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $11.55 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for The Art of the Prima Donna
Free Music Review: La Stupenda is stupendous on this recording. Don't miss it!
Hit: 5 Stars
I originally bought "The Art of the Prima Donna" in 1963, when I was just a kid, after seeing Dame Joan's debut in "Norma" with the Vancouver Opera in October of that year, and I was completely bowled over by both her live performances and her recording. She made me an opera fan for life. I've worn out and replaced that miraculous recording since then, and now have a third version on CD.
I completely disagree with those who believe that Sutherland lost the gleam on her voice after 1961. It's true that she suffered for several years with intermittently poor diction and rhythmic lapses, but these were due to terrible medical problems and the results of serious operations that were required to restore her health. Later she recovered most of her vocal lustre and all of her enthusiasm for performing, and her diction steadily improved. Her fabulous technique remained intact until her retirement in 1990.
No singers sound as fresh at 50 as they do at 30. Just listen to how Callas sounded in her later years, when her voice had almost completely deteriorated, and her career was far shorter than Sutherland's. The fact is that Sutherland sang in public for forty years, without amplification and often in barnlike theatres, and yet she still sounded formidable when she retired. Just listen to her performance of the final aria from "Lucrezia Borgia" on YouTube. I heard her debut in that role, again in Vancouver, shortly before that Covent Garden performance, and can attest that she was still in fabulous voice at the age of 53 and her coloratura remained spectacular.
What "The Art of the Prima Donna" gives us is the memory of an unparalleled vocal phenomenon in her glorious youth, before her physical disabilities briefly interrupted her career. No singer since has created a recording that exhibits anything like the range, vocal beauty and versatility that Sutherland displayed on this historic recording--not Callas, nor Caballe, nor Sills, nor any of their recent imitators. The title of this recording was not an exaggeration. This is singing that truly revived "The Age of Bel Canto," to quote the title of another Sutherland recording. "The Art of the Prima Donna" and Sutherland's earlier recordings, if you can get them, constitute an invaluable legacy from an artist who truly restored the golden age of singing.
Free Music Review: Sutherland is Amazing
Hit: 5 Stars
The first thing I ever heard by Sutherland was the Bel Raggio and I was floored. The voice sounded huge but I wondered if it was a technicians trick. I heard her on stage many times. Recordings do NO JUSTICE to the hugeness of the voice. Her diction was weak and her line sometimes droopy but the warm, huge, fexible voice was amazing. I don't think she or anyone else was the Voice or Singer of the century- no voice or singer could sing every role in the repetoire. Sutherland could no more sing Brunnhilde than Flagstad could sing Lucia.
In her repertoire, JS was one of the greatest voices with an incredible technique and style that ever made recordings. This is a great CD - but some others which were issued on vinyl but to my knowledge not on CD help round out the Sutherland greatnes, viz., Command Performance, The Age of Bel Canto and the French Opera Album. She did a 2 disc set called "A Festival of Baroque Operas- There is an aria called "Barbaro, Barbaro" which is mind boggling for the speed and clarity of its coloratura. Even in 1977 at 51 yrs old her video performance of Lucrezia Borgia is amazing - it is one of the greatest performances she ever did- exciting, tender and again with that huge voice and flexibility. The last scene is amazing.
Flawless-NO Unique-WITHOUT A DOUBT!!!!!
Free Music Review: A Phenomenal Historic Recording Newly Minted
Hit: 5 Stars
There is not much to add to the encomiums of previous reviews. This is one of the most astounding vocal recitals, if not THE most astounding, ever recorded. It caught one of history's greatest singers in her absolute prime, before the well-known defects - mushy diction, cloudy tone, sliding into notes, enervated rhythmic sense - began to compromise her singing. (Well, ok, the diction here is not crystal clear, but mostly quite acceptable and MUCH better than it later became.)
One wonders if any other soprano in history ever sang so fast, so high and so loud while always preserving such a full, golden, round sound. Sutherland was a genuine vocal phenomenon, and even those who don't generally care for her singing surely must find their jaws on the floor repeatedly during this recital. Every selection has something treasurable. My personal favorites: "A soldier tir'd," "Bel raggio lusinghier," "Qui la voce," "Come per me sereno," the "Hamlet" Mad Scene, the Bell Song, and "O beau pays."
The remastering is superb, enabling us to hear Sutherland's voice in all its pristine glory. The engineers have even managed to mitigate the rumble of Underground trains (the Picadilly Line?) that were a perpetual problem in Kingsway Hall, although I was glad to hear that the loud yell in the distance one hears during the "Croce e delizia" section of "Ah, fors'e lui" is still there; by now it is an old friend, and I would miss it.
Free Music Review: Canary in the silver mine
Hit: 4 Stars
This is a good compilation, and Sutherland was captured at the right time, before she went completely mushy dictionwise and lost her vocal sheen. The remastered sound is very good, too, spectacular for a recording from the 1960s.
However, after digesting this CD for several weeks, I still have a mixed response to all these Stupendous vocalistics.
The beginning is the main sour note- Arne is tired, with often imprecise, behind the beat coloratura, quite unlike the rest of Sutherland's output, and Let the Bright Seraphim is unbelievably leaden- the orchestra in particular sounds awful, and clunky. I can't comment on ornamentation here because I didn't detect any. This is a poor man's Seraphim, only impressive if you never heard any other versions, and Sutherland's voice is wasted in this piece.
This CD really picks up with Casta Diva, a dazzling showcase for Sutherland's voice. I was very impressed with Sutherland's performance as Norma in this recording- what happened to her in later years, when her "acting" was limited to, as she herself described it, wearing a "generally pained expression" and singing without much color or feeling?
Pieces from I Puritani are great, then we get excellent Rossini, wonderful Jewel Song, and then sparkling Juliet and very effective, beautiful and dramatically involved Desdemona.
And then- another fly in the ointment, Marten Aller Arten. This is one of my favourite arias and I can be very unforgiving when it comes to its performance, plus I like Konstanze to be really angry and wired, which is sort of opposite of what Joan does. This is a pretty, chirpy Marten, and she works hard on her German- way too hard actually, she seems to be slowing down trying to pronounce it, and still "Ich verlache" and "mich" turn into "Ich ve-ayee" and "meeeh", plus she does not sound as secure on top as I would expect, with a metallic high C. She picks up at the very end, putting some feeling into the sound, then topples again... This is a hit and miss one.
Fortunately the rest of the CD is filled with sparklers more in Sutherland's vein. Violetta is really great, with a fantastic high E, Ophelia is nice, Lakme is vocally one of the best I have ever heard, the dull Meyerbeer aria is made interesting and shimmery- that fabulous trill is finally put to work after many tracks of underuse- and then it all ends with a most charming Gilda.
It's not the greatest vocal performance ever put on vinyl/plastic/megabites, but overall, a good, historical set to add to your collection of opera recitals and soprano specials.
Free Music Review: Bel Canto from an angelic voice
Hit: 5 Stars
There are only a few soprano-recitals that are absolutely essential and must be in every opera collector's collection. The art of the primadonna, does it qualify? Oh yes indeed and here's why. Joan Sutherland had one of the most brilliant and beautiful voices in recorded history, combine that with an excellent technique, high notes that sparkle like stars and coloratura of angelic quality and you get what Joan Sutherland was in 1961. To describe only a few favourites:
2. Samson, oratorio, HWV 57 Let the bright Seraphim
Composed by George Frideric Handel
with Joan Sutherland
A sparkling and intense interpretation of this well known yet hardly ever magnificently performed piece. Lucid, beautiful and technically impeccable.
3. Norma, opera Sediziose voci... Casta diva... Ah! bello
Composed by Vincenzo Bellini
with Joan Sutherland
Surely her best studio-recording of this killer-aria. She is one of the few Normas who masters the recitativo without cracking or sounding strained, yet full of authority and intelligent drama. The Casta Diva itself is fluent, the make-or-break coloratura wonderfully executed. As for the cabaletta, not since young Callas in 1949 have I heard this piece sung so beautifully! Amazing high notes crown a cabaletta that broke more than one famous Norma before.
6. I Puritani, opera O rendetemi la speme... Qui la voce... Vien, diletto
Composed by Vincenzo Bellini
A Bellinian madscene at its finest. Once again only Callas in 1949 can be compared to this wonder of a recording. Callas too found darker colours and more intensity. (Dolore e passione as described in the score) Sutherland may lack these but she sings it with her own sense for drama which is uniquely sublime.
10. Otello, opera Mia madre aveva una povera ancella... Piangea cantando
Composed by Giuseppe Verdi
with Joan Sutherland
An interesting and excellent choice. There are pictures of Joan Sutherland as Desdemona and what a pity that no complete recording of her performances survived. I find her Desdemona to be far more convincing than Tebaldi because she sounds more fragile and elegant, plus she has that silvery tone of innocence that I don't hear in Tebaldi's golden, sensual voice. Excellent in the floating lines, beautiful and tender in the cantabile.
16. Rigoletto, opera Gualtier Maldè... Caro nome
Composed by Giuseppe Verdi
with Joan Sutherland
This can be compared to Maria Callas' live-performance of this piece and, being in excellent sound, might be preferred. (Callas was excellent in the studio as well, yet in 1955 she was less daring and defying) Stunningly intense in the cantabile and brilliant in the coloratura-passages. Far better than her famous performance with Pavarotti where she had lost the youthful, silvery sound that made her earlier Gilda so loveable.
I do not adore her as much in French opera and La Traviata or anything German but that doesn't mean that her singing was anything but amazing, just a personal preference. In short: Buy it and discover why Joan Sutherland is indeed La Stupenda!