The Young Artist
To young artists there are many mysteries and questions as we walk through our lives as performers. We have taken the risks of pursuing a career that is full of unknown paths and let downs. A large part of us as performers feels uncertain about making the right decisions as we move forward in chasing our dreams, whatever they may be. With all of these uncertainties it would be helpful to comprehend what steps are best for us as artists. The questions I wanted to answer are: What steps have been best for performers from the past? How did their achievements lead them to success? Who did they look up to as young artists before them to move their career forward?
Multiple performers from all over the world can be described as successful. The few that will be analyzed come from different parts of the world and are represented in different aspects of time starting from one of the most famous opera singers in the world, Luciano Pavarotti. Pavarotti began focusing on music in 1954 at the age of 19. He started studying with the respected teacher and professional tenor Arrigo Pola in Modena. In 1955, he became a member of the Corale Rossini which was one of his first singing successes. This male voice choir from Modena also included his father, who was reluctant to have him pursue a singing career, even though he won first prize at the International Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales. Pavarotti later said this was the most important experience of his life and that it was this that inspired him to become a professional singer.
The next strides in Pavarotti’s career were what pushed him into the spotlight. In February 1963, very early in his career, Pavarotti debuted at the Vienna State Opera as the lead male role in La Traviata. In March and April of 1963, The Vienna State Opera featured him again as Rodolfo and Duca di Mantoua in Rigoletto. Later that year he had his first concert outside of Italy in Dundalk, Ireland for the St. Cecilia’s Gramophone Society and his Royal Opera House debut. His real connection that led him to the United States was Joan Sutherland. In 1963, Sutherland was looking for a young tenor that was taller than her to sing on her tour to Australia. Pavarotti sang with Sutherland in over forty performances over two months, and he credits Sutherland for the amazing breathing technique that he displayed throughout his career. This relationship would later prove helpful in connecting him to the American opera scene; to the point where in a production of La Fille du regiment at New York’s Metropolitan Opera he caused a house record of seventeen curtain calls.
Finding that one of Luciano’s biggest steps in becoming a world famous singer was singing with Joan Sutherland, it would be interesting to look into her past. To see what risks she took to become an amazing artist. Joan Alston Sutherland was born in Sydney, Australia in 1926. When she was little, she would listen to her mother while she did singing exercises. Her mother was a mezzo-soprano who had taken voice lessons but had never considered making a career out of it. When Sutherland was 18 she started studying voice with John and Aida Dickens. Her first major concert debut was Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, in 1947. In 1951, she won the Sun Aria competition which pushed her to continue her studies in London. She started studying at the Opera School of the Royal College of Music with Clive Carey. During her time there she would be invited by the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden as a utility soprano which lead her to her debut in October of 1952. She would play the First Lady in The Magic Flute, where she would follow up in November with performances in as Clotilde in Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma, where Maria Callas was also Norma.
During Sutherland’s early career, she trained to be a Wagnerian dramatic soprano. At the end of 1952, she would sing her first leading role at the Royal Opera House as Amelia in Un ballo in maschera. She was just 26. Sutherland would go on to do roles such as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, Desdemona in Otello, Agathe in Der Freischütz, Gilda in Rigoletto, Pamina in The Magic Flute and Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. These would all lead her to sing the role of Lady Rich in Benjamin Britten’s Gloria in 1953. This then led her to originate the role of Jennifer in Michael Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage in January of 1955.
During this time Sutherland married Richard Bonynge who was an Australian conductor and pianist. Bonynge would slowly prove to her that she should explore more of the bel canto repertoire. This led her to spending most of her career singing as a dramatic coloratura soprano. This change started with Handel’s Alcina for the Handel Opera Society and Donizetti’s Emilia di Liverpool on radio broadcast. The following year, she would sing Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Vancouver, proving her bel canto was worthy of high praise. It wasn’t until February 17th 1959, having been an apprentice at Covent Garden for 7 years, at the age of 32, Sutherland would become an operatic star. She sang the title role of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and it later became her most performed role and would define her tremendous career. This particular performance was conducted by revered artist, Tullio Serafin, and directed by Franco Zeffirelli. This moment made her an overnight sensation and is still to this day talked about as one of the most momentous moments of opera in the 20th century.
After her triumph in Lucia, Sutherland would perform Violetta in La traviata in London in 1960 and then her Italian debut with Donna Anna and Desdemona in Vienna. After these performances at La Fenice, and performing the title role in Handel’s Alcina, she would be forever known as La Stupenda, the name she carried the rest of her life. She would feature Alcina again in her U.S. Debut in Dallas, Texas, Lucia in Paris and Elvira in I Puritani and Donna Anna at Glyndebourne. In 1961, Lucia would be the role that launched her international career as well, singing at La Scala in Milan and The Metropolitan Opera in New York. After this, Joan returned to Australia where she performed five of her largest roles, with the Sutherland-Williamson International Grand Opera Company and her husband, Richard Bonynge, as Musical Director. During this time she would be accompanied with a young tenor named Luciano Pavarotti, and the tour proved to be a major milestone in Pavarotti’s career with every performance with Sutherland being sold out.
After looking through Joan Sutherland’s beginnings, it’s interesting to look at different influencers that made large changes in the Fach that Sutherland would explore, such as Kirsten Flagstad. Kirsten Malfrid Flagstad was a Norwegian opera singer and highly regarded Wagnerian soprano. Flagstad was born in Hamar, Norway. She was raised in Oslo among a musical family; her father Michael Flagstad was a conductor and her mother Maja Flagstad was a pianist. Flagstad began her musical training at an early age in Oslo and would make her stage debut at the National Theatre in Oslo as Nuri in Eugen d’Albert’s Tiefland in 1913; Oslo is also where she would make some of her first recordings between 1913 and 1915. In 1919 she signed up with the newly created Opera Comique in Oslo, directed by Alexander Varnay and Benno Singer. Flagstad made her debut at the Stora Teatern of Gothenburg, Sweden as Agathe in Der Freischütz by Weber. In May of 1930 she would marry her second husband, who helped her expand her performing career.
The large shift in Flagstad’s career would come, after singing operetta and lyric roles for over a decade, when taking on heavier roles such as Aida and Tosca, with Aida in particular making Flagstad’s dramatic abilities a reality. Finally in 1932, she would take the role of Isolde in Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde where she found her true sound. This wasn’t until Winifred Wager auditioned Flagstad to be in the Bayreuth Festival. Flagstad sang minor roles at first in 1933. But the next season, should was given the opportunity to sing Sieglinde in Die Walküre and Gutrune in Götterdämmerung at the festival.
The connection that Flagstad had to the Metropolitan Opera was significant. But how did her connection start? Flagstad had been observed by Otto Hermann Kahn, the then Chairman of the Board at the Metropolitan Opera, during his trip to Scandinavia in 1929, and he requested her to audition. Around that time she had met her second husband, which had her thinking of quitting opera all together. It wasn’t until the Met needed a replacement for Frida Leider that Flagstad finally agreed to take the audition from conductor Artur Bodanzky and the Met General Manager at the time, Giulio Gatti-Casazza, in St Moritz in 1934. As he was leaving St Moritz Bodanzky commented, “Come to New York as soon as you know these roles (Isolde, the three Brünnhildes, Leonore in Fidelio, and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier) and above all do not go and get fat! Your slender, youthful figure is not the least reason you were engaged.” Uncalled for!
After looking into the different past of unbelievable performers some questions have been answered. What steps have been best for performers from the past? After looking at three different performers that had very different beginnings and seeing their achievements it is clear that it starts with singing repertoire that the singer enjoys and that shows the best parts of their voice. The examples in particular come from Joan Sutherland and Kirsten Flagstad. Sutherland hadn’t became successful until she clicked into the role of Lucia. Then with Flagstad having found Wagner and her dramatic soprano sound is what changed her career. How did their achievements get them to success? The truth behind answering this question after looking through different histories is learning roles. Such as Luciano Pavarotti learning roles from La traviata and Rigoletto. Sutherland and Flagstad had learned roles from different styles of singing ranging from operetta all the way to Wagner. Who did they look up to as young artists? The one connection that any world famous performer has, is the artist(s) they looked up to as young artists: looking at Luciano Pavarotti and his admiration of Joan Sutherland and then Sutherland’s love of Kirsten Flagstad’s singing. It is a fantastic cycle of understanding that looking at different artists, even if they are colleagues, can pick up different aspects of their own performing that makes them inspired to be something new or push to be better performers.
Having looked at different artists and their paths to their success, it makes it easier to examine internally and accept that the choices needed to move a career forward don’t necessarily come from big decisions. It comes from pursuing opportunities you enjoy about being an artist and finding the best place for the young artists art to exist. There is not one path to success. They are all different. As opera moves into the future a lot will change, but if the artist continues to pursue their passion, it will open the doors to grand success.