Went yesterday to the Thankgiving Service at Westminster Abbey for the great Australian soprano, Dame Joan Sutherland. Packed house. Wonderful occasion.
She had a career spanning half a century, singing in all the great opera houses of the world, but her artistic home was always the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. I was lucky enough to see and hear her often, both there and later at Sydney Opera House. Unassuming and full of fun, she was the most undivaish of divas.
After hearing the Abbey choir sing Byrd and we had mumbled a hymn, suddenly, there she was - recorded early in her career, singing Handel’s “Let the Bright Seraphim”. Dazzling technique. Incredible flexibility. Gorgeous creamy voice. Fabulous breath control.
Coached throughout her career by her husband, the conductor Richard Bonynge, she had brought a new dimension to the singing of 18th and early 19th century music.
It occurred to me, listening to that stream of notes, that she and Bonynge had not only re-introduced the opera world to a hatful of forgotten masterpieces, particularly the so-called bel canto operas of Donizetti and Bellini, but also that together they had re-created the substantially forgotten art of vocal ornamentation – the kind of thing that pop stars like Mariah Carey and Christina Aguilera aim to do, by comparison rather crudely, nowadays.
Re-discovery can be just as powerful as discovery in innovation.
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