THE TEN GREATEST SOPRANOS Heard Live 5 Sena Jurinac

This is a selection of videos of the Ten Greatest Sopranos I had the joy to hear in live performance. The order is simply when I first heard them. They are all from my impressionable student days, chosen because every one of these great singers gave performances as vivid to me now as when I first heard them. Every one was more than just a voice and they all sang, in their very different ways, so as to move, excite and enchant.

Sean Jurinac was extremely popular in England, beginning with Glyndebourne where she sang many principal Mozart roles. She was also a frequent visitor to Covent Garden. I heard her first in January 1959 as Madama Butterfly where she was convincingly strong without being excessively emotional.

She was ideal as Elvira in a very grand production of Don GIovanni by Franco Zeffirelli.
The settings were after Watteau, spacious, elaborate and moody, the costumes heavy and detailed in black, dark brown and gold, with contrasting pale colours for the peasants. Cesare Siepi, tall and elegant, was the perfect Don, Geraint Evans a fruity Leporello and Mirella Freni, in her early twenties, a charming Zerlina.

Elvira has a hard time in this opera and can easily sound squally. Sena Jurinac conquered by being noble and dignified. She had a very fine stage presence, with handsome features which read well from a distance, and she always sang with steady, strong, warm tone.

The new Fidelio production with Klemperer was a triumph all round. Jurinac was very convincing disguised as a young man and one always believed in Leonora's predicament. It was a genuinely felt and highly charged performance from Jurinac to which the whole company, including the Florestan, Jon Vickers, responded.

Then there was Rosenkavalier, with Sena as Oktavian. Despite the presence of a world renowned Marschallin, it was Jurinac who stole the show. She was, as ever, wholly convincing as the young man and very funny in disguise as "Mariandel".

In a house as large as Covent Garden, Sena Jurinac was memorable not for her fine voice alone, which she used with warmth and skill, but because she was an all round, consummate artist.

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• Sena
• Jurinac
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• Strauss
• Opera

[halavey]

What is the seating capacity of Covent Garden?

[CharlotteinWeimar]

about 2,300

[senafan]

I did hear Jurinac live once, when she did Kostelnicka in San Francisco in October 1980. I'd been an ardent fan since the first notes I ever heard her sing (the Third Norn in Furtwängler's "Götterdämmerung") and that impression has never dimmed. But back then few people here knew who she was. She was magnificent even at the age of 59, and I will never forget the ovation she got at the end. It was so gratifying to see her getting the recognition she had earned.

[CharlotteinWeimar]

A splendid comment Senafan, just the sort of response I am hoping to attract,. At last there are some videos posted and they are very fine. She was really famous in England and I was surprised that she was not so well known world wide Many thanks.

[CharlotteinWeimar]

If you heard this great singer live, please post a description.

[corellithebest]

Sena Jurinac is my fellow Croatian and I am so proud of her!

[JefRoberts]

I love Jurinac. She is one of my very favorite singers. She is such an artist - beautiful voice with really strong dramatic instincts across a wide repertoire of roles. I never saw her live. I grew up near San Francisco and she was a fairly frequent visitor to S.F.Opera in the late 50s-60s before I was old enough to attend myself. She did come back to S. F. to sing Kostelnička the same year I attended my first live opera, but I did not get into S.F. to see that production to my deep regret.

[zgopify]

@ezayi Well...when she was perfect in her vocalizing, noone came close! But I felt that she - just as with the marvellous Shirley Verrett - had her register a bit 'split' in the 70s and onwards. Like a tired 'gap' between the two registers. It was much more evident with Verrett, still I feel that it was clearly heard even with Price.

When in her prime, she was something close to paradise though, lets be thankful for that!

[ezayi]

@zgopify I agree with you in everything you wrote here... except for Leontyne been finished so early. I think she was spectacular right up till the end. Name one soprano that sang Aïda her whole career and ended it with that role. None!

Leontyne was spectacular. That´s why she´ll be remembered for generations to come. Jurinac was a fabulous singer. A pity that she wasn´t even more famous. A wonderful singer. :))

[onkelgreifenklau]

@CharlotteinWeimar

I had the very same experience way back in 1974 when I heard her for the first time as komponist in vienna - not knowing who she was and not knowing the opera -

as you say - her first notes made such an impact on me that from then on I did not miss a single performance of hers until she retired in 1981 -

in that very performace I also heard a more or less unknown edita gruberova as zerbinetta

[zgopify]

Jurinac is so underrated. She should definitely be on the list of the alltime greats. Of course she was famous, but not many today places her above Leontyne Price. Price had a lovely voice, but she was finished so early. Jurinacs monster performances are still talked about today by those who saw her, almost as much as Nilsson. I did not have the chance to see anyone of those giants live, and everyone agrees that what they did on the stage could never be captured on record...

[halavey]

it's pretty large as European houses go then. thanks.

[pellmeli]

She was a great Marschallin in San Francisco. Her recording of Strauss' "Four Last Songs" remains one of my favorites. She sang with such simple, honest musicality.