Joan Sutherland "Ah non giunge" La sonnambula

The final aria from La sonnambula, live performance from Met on January 21st, 1963. You can download the whole performance from here: http://www.angelfire.com/nf/amenemhat/blog/
Elvino was Nicolai Gedda, Lisa Jeanette Scovotti and count Ezio Flagello. Conductor was Silvio Varviso.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Joan
• Sutherland
• Ah
• non
• giunge
• La
• sonnambula
• Vincenzo
• Bellini
• live
• Met
• 1963

[JDOopera76]

Wow...no offense to u, and this is NOT just my opinion, but the truth (or close to it lol)...Battle had about 1/10th of Sutherland's volume & technique. Ok, now my opinion - sure, Battle's was a pretty sound, but surely not as bewildering as Sutherland's.

[Eiswirth1]

@Ahdren And what singer's voice sounds the same 15 years after any given point in time? No one's. She lost some of the brilliance/fast vibrato of he voice in the later 70's and 80's as it aged, but she never lost the greatest technique any singer has ever had, her trill, her top notes or her volume. She was the flat out best singer ever. (My opinion.)

[SymphonyBrahms]

One word. Brilliant.

[calaftheeast]

My god, her voice is so clean and bell-like. It is just indecent how natural and effortless it was for this woman to sing with the voice of the God.

[Cissy97]

This is the DEFINITIVE performance, la.

[Ariadne7710]

@TheMrMarilyn Absolutely right. I wish sopranos who want to show off their coloratura skills stopped butchering perfectly good melodic Operas by genius composers by adding totally stupid and irrelevant embellishments to show off what they can do and stuck to what the composer wanted. If they want to show off their coloratura technique they can either compose their own opera or find someone good enough to compose something which fits in to the melody and makes sense as opposed to this rubbish!!

[MisterPapageno]

This is the real style, this is the real vocality, this is singing WELL!

Wonderful Joan and shame on all those idiots that today sing this part not having understood neither where the voice should be put!

[Eiswirth1]

i love the way the audience applauds wildly immediately after she's sung her last note, long before the orchestra has played it's last note. What other singer has ever garnered a response like that? (There may be some, but I've never heard it.) Her voice bedazzled people like no one else's.

[OLIVCHEN77]

@assindiastignani I absolutely agree with you! I was in Bayreuth -horrible singers and stage! And "Dessay the Terrible as Violetta a few years was the lowest Standard in Verdisinging since Olive Middleton!!!!

I pray and hope that the Public in Vienna will her booed out of the theatre

[assindiastignani]

@OLIVCHEN77 Don't forget, it's been more than 40 years since Dame Joan sang this rep. in NY. Most people in the audience at Dessay's performances never heard her, and you can't begin to understand what Sutherland was like live if you've only heard recordings.But to continue your line of thinking, I wonder how the NY audiences can accept Fleming in roles that Price (both of them) and Steber used to sing, or Hamson in roles once sung by MacNeil, Merrill, Sereni etc.There are no standards anymore.