Opera Australia - The Best of Joan Sutherland and ABC Favourites

Well packaged box set celebrating Australian opera legend Joan Sutherland, focusing on her appearances at the Sydney Opera House with Opera Australia the set is broken up into two discs, first up is Encore! which includes highlights from such classic productions

as The Merry Widow, Die Fledermaus and Il Travatore; Act II offers up more of the same, both of the discs actually feature a lot of never seen before, dvd exclusive material, conductor of course is the legendary Richard Bonynge (whom Sutherland married in 1954).
Sydney born Sutherland was the daughter of an Opera singer and had a professional career as a top flight singer for over 50 years (she made her professional debut in 1952 in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas), blessed with a hugely dramatic range as a singer Sutherland voice has of course changed over the years (especially after surgery for a sinus operation) and her vocals have deepened over the decades, she is also a great performer too of course. The Best of Joan Sutherland offers up a great opportunity to listen and watch one of the key icons of Australian opera.

ABC FAVOURITES

A good idea this for anyone thinking of dipping their toe into the sometimes overly obscure world of opera - ABC favourites offers up 90 minutes of prime cuts from the archives of Opera Australia. Peter Ross presents highlights from such classics as La Bohéme featuring Neil Rosenshein, Glenys Fowles, Rosamund Illing and John Fulford; 'Il Trovatore' featuring Lauris Elms; Puccini's Tosca with Eva Marton and John Shaw whilst Lakmé by Léo Delibes features Joan Sutherland and Huguette Tourangeau. Sutherland also features in an excerpt from The Merry Widow. A great primer.

FINAL VERDICT

I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouch, scaramouch, can you do the fandango (We don't know much about Opera but we know what we like ;-)

ANY SPECIAL FEATURES?

No extras.