Eclectic Works From Soprano Susan Dunn in 1982 Recital

An early portrait of Susan Dunn
from the cover of Opera News
magazine in July 1987.

Thanks to YouTube user Sutherland9 we are able to hear some extraordinary musical excerpts from a recital that Grammy Award-winning soprano Susan Dunn gave on September 24, 1982. The clips represented show quite an expanse of repertoire for the spinto most well-known for the music of Giuseppe Verdi. During her career she sang 14 complete operas of the Italian master, including Nabucco, I Masnadieri, I Vespri Siciliani, Giovanna d'Arco, Un Giorno di Regno, Attila and Macbeth. This recital is auspicious for the Arkansas-native because it is the same year she made her professional opera stage debut in the title role of Verdi's Aida at the Peoria Civic Opera in Illinois. Within a decade she was singing at the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala and the Vienna State Opera. Although she scaled her career back significantly in the mid-1990s, she still performs frequently these days in addition to heading the vocal music program Opera Workshop at Duke University. She lives in North Carolina with her husband - conductor and composer - Scott Tilley. [Source]


"Dank sei Dir, Herr" (Händel)


"E Susanna non vien...Dove sono" Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart)


"Vissi d'arte" Tosca (Puccini)


"Pace, pace mio Dio" La Forza del Destino (Verdi)


"I know where I'm goin'" Irish folk song


"Johnny we hardly knew ye" Irish folk song

Be sure to check out the latest CD release from the soprano. Listen to clips by clicking here: "In the late 1970s, John Wustman came to Indiana University as a guest faculty member. He chose the Mörike-Lieder as the focus of his first semester. After several classes, I worked up the courage to sing 'Schlafendes Jesuskind' for him. His comment as I finished was that we could make a recording together. Thus began our relationship as mentor-accompanist and singer. As my career began and John and I appeared in concert together, I began to dream of recording the Mörike-Lieder with him. From that dream was born a concert presenting all fifty-three songs in two evenings at Duke University. Thomas Potter, my friend and a fellow student of Mr. Wustman, served as our baritone voice for the songs that required the masculine perspective. The Mörike-Lieder, composed in less than nine months of white-hot inspiration, provide the singer with an incredible array of color, character and vocal challenges. As the singer manages technical and interpretive complexities, the accompanist navigates an arduous path of pianistic virtuosity. At first I was drawn to the eight religiously themed songs, but I have come to embrace the naughty 'Erstes Liebeslied eines Madchens,' the gently humorous 'Rat einer Alten,' the tragic 'An Eine Aolsharfe,' and the moody 'Die Geister am Mummelsee.' Mörike poetry is by turns sensual, humorous, mournful, and eerie, but always evocative. Wolf, using a harmonic language akin to that of Wagner, but without the long- windedness, manages to capture the heart of each poem, often distilling the essence into a few measures a couple of intense pages. After years of studying the Mörike-Lieder together and separately, John, Thomas and I offer this recording. Our hope is that the listener will fall in love with them just as we have." [Source]

Maestro Chailly with the lirico-spinto circa 1990.

Read the June 1989 article in the New York Times about Susan Dunn by clicking here and another wonderful article about the singer's background here. Biographical information and more video clips are after the jump.