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Sutherland
Oct. 12th, 2010 10:41 amJoan Sutherland is gone. I saw her perform when I lived in Sydney, but that's not why I'm so sad. She changed a lot about Australia's understanding of opera. When she sang at her best, she was extraordinary. All these things are wonderful, but again, not why I shall mourn her.
Let me backtrack.
In my twenties and thirties my life was very mildly speckled with people whose names I vaguely knew (or, in the case of Sutherland and Elms whose names I knew very well) saying "You're Linda's cousin - give her our regards next time you see her, please." The thing that I remember most is something one of these colleagues and friends of Linda said once. It was an aside, not a complaint, but it should have been a complaint. It should have been a raging fume of volcanic anger. It wasn't. It was just something that this musician had to live with. Something that hurt.
Australian culture tends to choose its heroes. Honour for achievement is not a given here. Sports people or those who have done great physical feats or survived terrific emotional burdens are more likely to get emotional support for their work than anyone in the Arts. Sutherland and her colleagues were in the Arts. They lived arduous and public lives. Most of the time for most of them it may possibly have been a relief to come back to Australia and discover the toilet paper had run out and that the kids were temperamental because the tour had disrupted their lives. Normalcy is a good thing, I suspect, overall.
The thing is, though, that Australia didn't really offer normalcy to world-famous opera singers or brilliant painters or Nobel-prize winning writers. The message these artists received if they dared talk about audiences or interpretation or - God forbid - awards was that they were up themselves and needed to get a real job. There was a chasm between what they did for a living and what they were allowed to bring back home. Private lives had to be mundane and to be seen to be mundane.
Joan Sutherland helped change this. She changed a lot of things.
It's now OK to work in the Arts. When I say I write people tell me of the novel they're working on and don't often say "Vade retro" or "Get a real job" or "Children will knock that nonsense out of you." People in the Arts are still expected to have due modesty and to let other people do the talking (which has led to a real problem with what a friend calls 'gatekeepers') but at least I don't have to pretend to be a person I'm not. I can be myself in all aspects of my life.
In the sixties there was an exodus of writers and painters and musicians (mostly to London) because it really is hard to live in a place where your capacity to make a living at the work you love ranges from difficult to impossible and where people around you act as if they despise you for doing that work.
The funny thing is that there wasn't a great deal of true despite in all that social pressure. Mostly it was a cultural attitude, where the good and great aren't allowed to know or admit they're good and great. It left (and still leaves - don't ask about our Federal Arts budget!!) many arts practitioners without physical or emotional support. Careers in the Arts are chancy. Everyday life can be difficult. Compared with some years back, though, it's a doddle. Artists like Sutherland had to separate their public and private selves almost completely if they wanted even to visit their homeland.
Despite all this, Sutherland gave a vast amount to Australian music and musicians. A friend of mine was mentored by her, which is when I found out (in the eighties) that Sutherland didn't let the personal hurt which I rather suspect she suffered get in the way of helping others. If she didn't suffer the hurt, then her soul would have been made of iron. She didn't sing as if her soul was made of iron.
All this is in my past. I'm taking a moment to miss her. Not the her I talked to just that once (when I gave her cheek and finger food, and she laughed and was very gracious and sent her regards to my cousin) but the her that was a major force in making Australia a place where writers and musicians and artists of all sorts can live.
Let me backtrack.
In my twenties and thirties my life was very mildly speckled with people whose names I vaguely knew (or, in the case of Sutherland and Elms whose names I knew very well) saying "You're Linda's cousin - give her our regards next time you see her, please." The thing that I remember most is something one of these colleagues and friends of Linda said once. It was an aside, not a complaint, but it should have been a complaint. It should have been a raging fume of volcanic anger. It wasn't. It was just something that this musician had to live with. Something that hurt.
Australian culture tends to choose its heroes. Honour for achievement is not a given here. Sports people or those who have done great physical feats or survived terrific emotional burdens are more likely to get emotional support for their work than anyone in the Arts. Sutherland and her colleagues were in the Arts. They lived arduous and public lives. Most of the time for most of them it may possibly have been a relief to come back to Australia and discover the toilet paper had run out and that the kids were temperamental because the tour had disrupted their lives. Normalcy is a good thing, I suspect, overall.
The thing is, though, that Australia didn't really offer normalcy to world-famous opera singers or brilliant painters or Nobel-prize winning writers. The message these artists received if they dared talk about audiences or interpretation or - God forbid - awards was that they were up themselves and needed to get a real job. There was a chasm between what they did for a living and what they were allowed to bring back home. Private lives had to be mundane and to be seen to be mundane.
Joan Sutherland helped change this. She changed a lot of things.
It's now OK to work in the Arts. When I say I write people tell me of the novel they're working on and don't often say "Vade retro" or "Get a real job" or "Children will knock that nonsense out of you." People in the Arts are still expected to have due modesty and to let other people do the talking (which has led to a real problem with what a friend calls 'gatekeepers') but at least I don't have to pretend to be a person I'm not. I can be myself in all aspects of my life.
In the sixties there was an exodus of writers and painters and musicians (mostly to London) because it really is hard to live in a place where your capacity to make a living at the work you love ranges from difficult to impossible and where people around you act as if they despise you for doing that work.
The funny thing is that there wasn't a great deal of true despite in all that social pressure. Mostly it was a cultural attitude, where the good and great aren't allowed to know or admit they're good and great. It left (and still leaves - don't ask about our Federal Arts budget!!) many arts practitioners without physical or emotional support. Careers in the Arts are chancy. Everyday life can be difficult. Compared with some years back, though, it's a doddle. Artists like Sutherland had to separate their public and private selves almost completely if they wanted even to visit their homeland.
Despite all this, Sutherland gave a vast amount to Australian music and musicians. A friend of mine was mentored by her, which is when I found out (in the eighties) that Sutherland didn't let the personal hurt which I rather suspect she suffered get in the way of helping others. If she didn't suffer the hurt, then her soul would have been made of iron. She didn't sing as if her soul was made of iron.
All this is in my past. I'm taking a moment to miss her. Not the her I talked to just that once (when I gave her cheek and finger food, and she laughed and was very gracious and sent her regards to my cousin) but the her that was a major force in making Australia a place where writers and musicians and artists of all sorts can live.