Joan Sutherland: BBC-Recitals 1958, 1960, 1961

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Music reviews of Joan Sutherland: BBC-Recitals 1958, 1960, 1961

Music Review: Good Early Sutherland Concert Fare
Rating: 4 Stars

The selections are relatively unconventional and unfamiliar--evidently a point with the concert choices made by Sutherland and Bonynge--which will be welcome and refreshing to many. As the notes point out, "This group is typical of the creative programs Sutherland and Bonynge would present for next 30 years. They created 15 different programs and appeared together 129 times in recital. . . . [They] loved to rediscover music and made a specialty of reintroducing the world to many forgotten bonbons, such as these." Dame Joan is in fresh, youthful voice (her international career began with her Covent Garden Lucia in 1959, and she was 32 to 35 when these recitals were broadcast) and sings handsomely throughout, often displaying an attractive mezzo-like fullness and warmth of tone. But Sutherland opera fans may be somewhat disappointed, not in the singing, but in the material here, which calls for little of the full-throated excitement, dazzling pyrotechnics, and brilliant high notes of her best opera recordings; this is more modest fare, and it is, appropriately, more modestly sung. The sound is decent, clean, eminently listenable monaural, no doubt from airchecks, but has this small annoyance: it is afflicted throughout with a residual level of pre-echo and post-echo that is clearly audible on a high-resolution playback system.

The indispensable Sutherland collections (apart from her complete opera recordings) are The Art of the Prima Donna (2 CDs, all 1960 recordings) and La Stupenda (2 CDs, recordings from 1959 to 1988); these should be owned by anyone interested in Sutherland, coloratura soprano singing, or simply great singing. This recital, while enjoyable, is certainly not of comparable importance. But if you are a Sutherland fan and would like to supplement her meatier operatic endeavors with engagingly sung concert fare from the early years of her international career, this is a good choice.

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