Lloyd Webber Talks Joan Sutherland

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Andrew Lloyd Webber has praised Joan Sutherland for both her acting and vocal chops. Sutherland died at her Switzerland home last night. She was 83.

Though he ever met her, he said, "We were all absolutely tonight wanting to think of her memory," he told ABC Radio in Melbourne from London. What a lot of people forget is that opera is not just about singing, it is about what you can bring to a role and she made the roles very much her own. She had that added ingredient that you really need to have to be not just a great singer, but a great theatre artist. I've never heard anybody who hasn't had the highest praise to say about her."

Dame Joan Alston Sutherland,was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution in the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s. One of the most remarkable female opera singers of the 20th century, she was dubbed La Stupenda by a La Fenice audience in 1960 after a performance as Alcina.

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