Richard Bonynge

[Conchis]

An old assertion: is it to be regretted that Mr. Bonynge conducted so many of his late wife's recordings?

On the whole, I'd say it is. A lot of them would have been near-defnitive, I'd say, but for the somewhat workmanlike (though never less than that) contribution of the man on the podium.

His ballot recordings, likewise, do very little for me.

Apparently, the Covent Garden Orchestra strongly disliked working with him. Is this true?

[Richard Tarleton]

Insights into this complex subject in John Culshaw's Putting the Record Straight, pp.292-295, and Norman Lebrecht's Covent Garden, pp 202-205 (Lebrecht quotes extensively from Culshaw). If it hadn't been for him she wouldn't have been discovered, but he became the sine qua non of her career for reasons that had much to do with their relationship.
Culshaw:

I think he was simply unaware of his own deficiencies as a conductor, and strangely impervious to the shafts of irony which orchestral players would hurl at him from time to time....[his monopoly of her] prevented the opera audiences from hearing Joan Sutherland with the great conductors of the age, for it soon became the rule (and there were very, very few exceptions) that to engage Sutherland you had to engage Bonynge as well.

I saw her/them once - in Lucia.

[Barbirollians]

Some of his early ballet extract recordings on Australian eloquence are very good . I agree that many of the sutherland opera recordings I have heard were undermined by lacklustre conducting .

[MickyD]

I have a later (1993) Decca recording of him with the Welsh National Opera Orchestra in the ballet "Les Deux Pigeons" by Messager - it is delightful music and I think here Bonynge's conducting is very fine.

[Tetrachord]

I worked, up until 1976, in the next office to the author of this book on Joan Sutherland. And I was very friendly with the author's wife.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9626525?selectedversion=NBD1664640

There were always jokes going around the place about Richard Bonynge, that's all I can tell you. Most of the jokes were tasteless, with some I simply cannot print here because of laws surrounding homophobia!!! But there is little doubt that many people considered "Dickie" to be hanging off Joan's success.

I never liked Sutherland's voice as I need to be able to hear the words in an opera, even if in a foreign language!

[Hornspieler]

An old assertion: is it to be regretted that Mr. Bonynge conducted so many of his late wife's recordings?

On the whole, I'd say it is. A lot of them would have been near-defnitive, I'd say, but for the somewhat workmanlike (though never less than that) contribution of the man on the podium.

His ballot recordings, likewise, do very little for me.

Apparently, the Covent Garden Orchestra strongly disliked working with him. Is this true?

So, with the orchestra firmly in the "leave" camp Mr. Bonynge might not have had a working majority!

Personally, I thought that Sutherland's reputation owed much to her having come all the way from Australia.

She was certainly less than in stature in comparison with the likes of Victoria de Los Angelis or Lisa Dela Casa.

Water under the bridge now. Let's move on and think about the forthcoming Proms

HS

[Barbirollians]

I was watching a programme last night from Sky Arts about Surtherlsnd and they made the point that if you wanted Sutherland you got them both. I don’t think it is a coincidence that two of her greatest opera recordings were conducted by others - Mehta’s Turandot and Pritchard’s Lucia for a start .

I don’t think Bonynge was terrible just rather ordinary. As noted above some of his lesser known works ballet recordings are very good.

[LMcD]

An old assertion: is it to be regretted that Mr. Bonynge conducted so many of his late wife's recordings?

On the whole, I'd say it is. A lot of them would have been near-defnitive, I'd say, but for the somewhat workmanlike (though never less than that) contribution of the man on the podium.

His ballot recordings, likewise, do very little for me.

Apparently, the Covent Garden Orchestra strongly disliked working with him. Is this true?

Perhaps we should conduct a poll on the quality of his ballot recordings.

[cloughie]

Perhaps we should conduct a poll on the quality of his ballot recordings.

Had he conducted the Halle the combination would have resembled a Vitamin C tablet!

His Decca ballet recordings are excellent, quite a few of works not widely represented in the catalogue. Can’t comment on his opera recordings as I don’t dig deep there, and whilst I appreciate her talents and vocal range I don’t listen to JS much.

[gurnemanz]

Nothing to add re RB and JS but with completist tendencies in the French song area I recently downloaded three CDs worth of Massenet songs, which I came across being very enthusiastically reviewed. Richard Bonynge, aged 80+, is the instigator and excellent piano accompanist. Niche repertoire maybe but some fine singing mainly from Sally Silver and I found them most enjoyable and rewarding

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8026149--massenet-ivre-damour-28-songs-for-soprano-and-piano

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8019975--les-amoureuses-sont-des-folles

https://www.somm-recordings.com/recording/la-vie-dune-rose-massenet-songs-two/