Joan Carden
Encyclopedia
Joan Carden AO OBE (born 9 October 1937) is an Australia
n opera
tic soprano
. She has been described as "a worthy successor to Dame Nellie Melba
and Dame Joan Sutherland
" and was sometimes known as "the other Joan" (a reference to Sutherland and Dame Joan Hammond
) or "The People's Diva". She was a Principal Soprano with Opera Australia
for 32 years, and was particularly associated with the title roles of Giacomo Puccini
's Tosca
and Madama Butterfly
. However, she sang over 50 other roles, from the 18th century, including virtually all the Mozart
heroines, through to works by contemporary composers.
, an only child, in 1937. Her parents were Frank Carden (born Kalgoorlie 1902, died Melbourne 1967) and Margaret Carden née Cooke (born Sassafras, Tasmania 1896, died Sydney 1997). She attended Lee Street State School, North Carlton, and Ormond State School, Melbourne, was dux of Prahran Technical Girls' School in 1955. Her first experience of opera as a child was hearing Mozart
's The Magic Flute
, and then Richard Strauss
's Salome
sung by Joan Hammond
. She would later become a friend of Hammond, singing at her funeral in Bowral, New South Wales and at her memorial concert in Melbourne, and she also received the Dame Joan Hammond Award.
She was a private student at Trinity College of Music
in London
and won a Stuyvesant Scholarship tenable at London Opera Centre, 1966/7, where her singing teacher was the West Australian expatriate Vida Harford (1907–1992), with whom she studied for the remainder of her teacher's life. Wagnerian English soprano Thea Phillips was in Melbourne, her first singing teacher, then briefly Henri Portnoj. She won a major prize in the Munich International Music Competition in September, 1967, before graduating from the London Opera Centre that year. She performed in the United Kingdom
, and Germany
. She returned to Australia in 1970, joining in 1971 the Australian Opera (now Opera Australia
) a major principal till retiring from that company in 2003.
Her debut with OA was in 1971 as Liù in Giacomo Puccini
's Turandot
in 1971, then Marguerite in Gounod's "Faust". In the first season at the Sydney Opera House
(1973–74) she sang Pamina in The Magic Flute. at the Royal Performance in October, then Natasha in "War and Peace" Her career with OA saw her sing such other roles as Tosca
and Madama Butterfly
many times, as well as Marguérite (Faust
), Gilda (Rigoletto
), Queen Elizabeth (Maria Stuarda
; opposite Deborah Riedel
in the title role), Desdemona (Otello
), Leonora (Il trovatore
and La forza del destino
), Violetta (La traviata
), Tatiana (Eugene Onegin
), Mimi (La bohème
), Most of the Mozart heroines, including Donna Anna and Elvira (Don Giovanni
), the Countess (The Marriage of Figaro
), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte
), Vitellia (La clemenza di Tito
),plus Richard Strauss's Feldmarschallin (Der Rosenkavalier
), Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes
), the four heroines performed in English and then French, in The Tales of Hoffmann, Eva (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
), Alice Ford (Falstaff
), Elisabetta (Don Carlos
), and the title roles in Lakmé
, Alcina
, Adriana Lecouvreur
, and Suor Angelica
. She also sang a concert repertoire appearing with Sydney Philharmonia, etc., including Verdi
's Requiem
.
Overseas, she sang Gilda (Rigoletto) at Covent Garden in 1974, Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) at the 1977 Glyndebourne Festival
(in the production by Sir Peter Hall) and with the Metropolitan Opera
in 1978. Her American debut, however, was as Amenaide with the Houston Grand Opera
opposite Marilyn Horne
in Rossini's Tancredi
. She also appeared as Constanza (The Abduction from the Seraglio
) with Scottish Opera
in 1978.
In 1980 she performed with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center
in Washington, D.C.
She sang the four soprano roles in English in Offenbach
's The Tales of Hofffman for English Opera North in 1981, and reprised these roles with Opera Australia the following year. and later in French In 1982 she sang with Greater Miami Opera as Amelia in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra
, with Cornell MacNeil
.
Joan Carden also sang with I Solisti Veneti
conducted by long-term friend, Richard Divall and many Australian state opera companies. She played the Mother Abbess in the Adelaide season of The Sound of Music
having begun her stage career as understudy to June Bronhill in 1960, in The Merry Widow
, then later appeared as Mother Raphael with in John MIsto's biographical musical play on the life of Irish soprano/harpist Mary O'Hara, Marina Prior as the mature Mary, at the Comedy Theatre, in Melbourne, in 2005.
On 26 January 1988 she was given the honour of singing the Australian national anthem Advance Australia Fair
to a worldwide audience as part of the celebrations of Australia's Bicentenary
. That same day she also sang in the world premiere of Peter Sculthorpe
's Child of Australia at the Opera House, with narrator John Howard
and the Sydney Philharmonia Choir and Australian Youth Orchestra
under Carlo Felice Cillario
.
On 11 April 1991 she was invited to share her reminiscences in an address to the National Press Club
in Canberra
.
She sang in Melbourne during the worldwide telecast of the 1992 AFL Grand Final
. In 1993 and at an Australia Day
charity concert with Jose Carreras at Covent Garden before Prince Charles
. That year she received an Australian Artists Creative Fellowship.
In 2000 she stepped in at very short notice to sing Tosca
in Adelaide
for an ailing friend, Deborah Riedel who subsequently died of liver cancer at the age of 50.. The story of wearing her own jewellery is apocryphal.
Her farewell major role with Opera Australia was as Tosca in Sydney in 2002. After her final performance she was awarded the Opera Australia Trophy at a ceremony at the Opera House. In March 2003 she was given a reception in her honour by the Governor-General
, Major General Michael Jeffery
, at Admiralty House, Sydney.
However, she did not stop singing altogether. In 2003, she created the role of "Public Opinion", based on the Australian political figure Pauline Hanson
, in the Sydney season of Opera Australia's new production of Offenbach
's Orpheus in the Underworld
. On 2 June 2003, Joan Carden sang at a ceremony at the Melbourne Town Hall
to launch Australia Post
's new series of stamps commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
In 2006 she sang Exsultate, jubilate
in a concert at the Great Hall of the University of Sydney
with Sydney University Graduates Choir, music director Christopher Bowen, who sponsor the Joan Carden Award for vocal students of Sydney Conservatorium, the concert in honour of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
.
In 2006 also, she appeared in the musical Titanic
, as Ida Strauss. It opened in Sydney to high praise from the critics, but the run was cut short due to poor ticket sales, and the planned Brisbane and Melbourne seasons were cancelled.
She sang at the memorial concert for Rosina Raisbeck
in early 2007. That year she appeared in a straight acting role in the Melbourne season of Harp on the Willow, a play with music about the life of the Irish singer Mary O'Hara
, starring Marina Prior
as O'Hara. In the play, Carden and Prior sang "The Flower Duet
" from Delibes
' Lakmé
.
She was Patron of the now defunct National Voice Centre at the University of Sydney, the Victorian College of the Arts
Opera, and the Musical Society of Victoria. and is a trustee of Opera Australia Benevolent Fund.
; The People's Diva, which showed her in rehearsal and preparation for Madama Butterfly
; and Great Operatic Heroines, with the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra under Roderick Brydon.
Her singing of the aria "È strano! Ah, fors'è lui " from Verdi's La traviata
is heard in the film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
.
.
In 1987 she received the Dame Joan Hammond Award for Operatic Excellence.
In the Queen's Birthday Honours of June 1988 she was appointed an Officer (AO) of the Order of Australia
.
In 1992 she sang before U.S. President George H. W. Bush
on his Australian visit.
In 2001, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Swinburne University of Technology
in Melbourne.
That year she was awarded the Australian Government's Centenary Medal. On 15 April 2004 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Australian Catholic University
.
In 2005, the Joan Carden Award was created by the Sydney University Graduates Choir, and is awarded to an outstanding singing student at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music
.
. There is also the G. F. Carden Leukemia
Research Foundation, funding from which facilitated treatment pioneered by Professor Don Metcalfe that saved the life of many people, including José Carreras
. In 1990 Joan Carden sang at Covent Garden
with Carreras and a group of Australian singers in a concert to raise funds for Carreras's own leukemia research foundation, and she made him aware of this connection.
Her 1962 marriage to a British steeplechase coach William Coyne produced two daughters, and ended in divorce in 1980. Their children are Vida Carden-Coyne (named after her first singing teacher Vida Harford), an arts administrator; and Dr Ana Carden-Coyne, a cultural historian and founder of the Centre for the Cultural History of War at the University of Manchester
.
Joan Carden converted from Anglo-Catholicism
to Roman Catholicism
in 1960. She sang at the funeral of Archbishop Carroll, who was both a spiritual adviser and a great admirer of her singing.
She suffered a number of heart attacks during her career, but returned to the stage each time.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
. She has been described as "a worthy successor to Dame Nellie Melba
Nellie Melba
Dame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...
and Dame Joan Sutherland
Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s....
" and was sometimes known as "the other Joan" (a reference to Sutherland and Dame Joan Hammond
Joan Hammond
Dame Joan Hilda Hood Hammond, DBE, CMG was an Australian operatic soprano, singing coach and champion golfer.- Early life :...
) or "The People's Diva". She was a Principal Soprano with Opera Australia
Opera Australia
Opera Australia is the principal opera company in Australia. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of its time spent in the The Arts Centre in Melbourne...
for 32 years, and was particularly associated with the title roles of Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
's Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
and Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
. However, she sang over 50 other roles, from the 18th century, including virtually all the Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
heroines, through to works by contemporary composers.
Biography
Joan Maralyn Carden was born in MelbourneMelbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, an only child, in 1937. Her parents were Frank Carden (born Kalgoorlie 1902, died Melbourne 1967) and Margaret Carden née Cooke (born Sassafras, Tasmania 1896, died Sydney 1997). She attended Lee Street State School, North Carlton, and Ormond State School, Melbourne, was dux of Prahran Technical Girls' School in 1955. Her first experience of opera as a child was hearing Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
, and then Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Salome
Salome
Salome , the Daughter of Herodias , is known from the New Testament...
sung by Joan Hammond
Joan Hammond
Dame Joan Hilda Hood Hammond, DBE, CMG was an Australian operatic soprano, singing coach and champion golfer.- Early life :...
. She would later become a friend of Hammond, singing at her funeral in Bowral, New South Wales and at her memorial concert in Melbourne, and she also received the Dame Joan Hammond Award.
She was a private student at Trinity College of Music
Trinity College of Music
Trinity College of Music is one of the London music conservatories, based in Greenwich. It is part of Trinity Laban.The conservatoire is inheritor of elegant riverside buildings of the former Greenwich Hospital, designed in part by Sir Christopher Wren...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and won a Stuyvesant Scholarship tenable at London Opera Centre, 1966/7, where her singing teacher was the West Australian expatriate Vida Harford (1907–1992), with whom she studied for the remainder of her teacher's life. Wagnerian English soprano Thea Phillips was in Melbourne, her first singing teacher, then briefly Henri Portnoj. She won a major prize in the Munich International Music Competition in September, 1967, before graduating from the London Opera Centre that year. She performed in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. She returned to Australia in 1970, joining in 1971 the Australian Opera (now Opera Australia
Opera Australia
Opera Australia is the principal opera company in Australia. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of its time spent in the The Arts Centre in Melbourne...
) a major principal till retiring from that company in 2003.
Her debut with OA was in 1971 as Liù in Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
's Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
in 1971, then Marguerite in Gounod's "Faust". In the first season at the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
(1973–74) she sang Pamina in The Magic Flute. at the Royal Performance in October, then Natasha in "War and Peace" Her career with OA saw her sing such other roles as Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
and Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
many times, as well as Marguérite (Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
), Gilda (Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
), Queen Elizabeth (Maria Stuarda
Maria Stuarda
Maria Stuarda is a tragic opera, , in two acts, by Gaetano Donizetti, to a libretto by Giuseppe Bardari, based on Friedrich Schiller's 1800 play Maria Stuart....
; opposite Deborah Riedel
Deborah Riedel
Deborah Riedel was an Australian operatic soprano. Hers is generally regarded as one of the greatest voices ever produced in Australia. She died of cancer at the height of her career, at the age of 50....
in the title role), Desdemona (Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
), Leonora (Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
and La forza del destino
La forza del destino
La forza del destino is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino , by Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager. It was first performed...
), Violetta (La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
), Tatiana (Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin (opera)
Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, is an opera in 3 acts , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Konstantin Shilovsky and the composer and his brother Modest, and is based on the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin....
), Mimi (La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
), Most of the Mozart heroines, including Donna Anna and Elvira (Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
), the Countess (The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
), Vitellia (La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito , K. 621, is an opera seria in two acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, after Metastasio...
),plus Richard Strauss's Feldmarschallin (Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
), Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes
Peter Grimes
Peter Grimes is an opera by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater from the Peter Grimes section of George Crabbe's poem The Borough...
), the four heroines performed in English and then French, in The Tales of Hoffmann, Eva (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...
), Alice Ford (Falstaff
Falstaff (opera)
Falstaff is an operatic commedia lirica in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV. It was Verdi's last opera, written in the composer's ninth decade, and only the second of his 26 operas to be a comedy...
), Elisabetta (Don Carlos
Don Carlos
Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French language libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien by Friedrich Schiller...
), and the title roles in Lakmé
Lakmé
Lakmé is an opera in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet and Philippe Gille. Delibes wrote the score during 1881–82 with its first performance on 14 April 1883 at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Set in British India in the mid 19th century, Lakmé is based on the 1880 novel...
, Alcina
Alcina
Alcina is an opera seria by George Frideric Handel. Handel used the libretto of L'isola di Alcina, an opera that was set in 1728 in Rome by Riccardo Broschi, which he acquired the year after, during his travels in Italy...
, Adriana Lecouvreur
Adriana Lecouvreur
Adriana Lecouvreur is an opera in four acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the play by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé...
, and Suor Angelica
Suor Angelica
Suor Angelica is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an original Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. It is the second opera of the trio of operas known as Il trittico...
. She also sang a concert repertoire appearing with Sydney Philharmonia, etc., including Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Requiem
Requiem (Verdi)
The Messa da Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi is a musical setting of the Roman Catholic funeral mass for four soloists, double choir and orchestra. It was composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, an Italian poet and novelist much admired by Verdi. The first performance in San Marco in Milan on 22 May...
.
Overseas, she sang Gilda (Rigoletto) at Covent Garden in 1974, Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) at the 1977 Glyndebourne Festival
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an English opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.-History:...
(in the production by Sir Peter Hall) and with the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in 1978. Her American debut, however, was as Amenaide with the Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
opposite Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer. She specialized in roles requiring a large sound, beauty of tone, excellent breath support, and the ability to execute difficult coloratura passages....
in Rossini's Tancredi
Tancredi
Tancredi is a melodramma eroico in two acts by composer Gioachino Rossini and librettist Gaetano Rossi, based on Voltaire's play Tancrède...
. She also appeared as Constanza (The Abduction from the Seraglio
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...
) with Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies funded by the Scottish Government...
in 1978.
In 1980 she performed with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
She sang the four soprano roles in English in Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's The Tales of Hofffman for English Opera North in 1981, and reprised these roles with Opera Australia the following year. and later in French In 1982 she sang with Greater Miami Opera as Amelia in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Simón Bocanegra by Antonio García Gutiérrez....
, with Cornell MacNeil
Cornell MacNeil
Cornell MacNeil , was an American operatic baritone known for his exceptional voice and long career with the Metropolitan Opera, which spanned 642 performances in twenty-six roles. F...
.
Joan Carden also sang with I Solisti Veneti
I Solisti Veneti
I Solisti Veneti is one of the first rank of small Italian chamber orchestras with modern instruments. Founded in Padua in 1959 by Claudio Scimone, it has made a reputation especially with Italian Baroque music, recording many works by Antonio Vivaldi, Tomaso Albinoni, Francesco Geminiani,...
conducted by long-term friend, Richard Divall and many Australian state opera companies. She played the Mother Abbess in the Adelaide season of The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...
having begun her stage career as understudy to June Bronhill in 1960, in The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...
, then later appeared as Mother Raphael with in John MIsto's biographical musical play on the life of Irish soprano/harpist Mary O'Hara, Marina Prior as the mature Mary, at the Comedy Theatre, in Melbourne, in 2005.
On 26 January 1988 she was given the honour of singing the Australian national anthem Advance Australia Fair
Advance Australia Fair
"Advance Australia Fair" is the official national anthem of Australia. Created by the Scottish-born composer, Peter Dodds McCormick, the song was first performed in 1878, but did not gain its status as the official anthem until 1984. Until then, the song was sung in Australia as a patriotic song...
to a worldwide audience as part of the celebrations of Australia's Bicentenary
Australian Bicentenary
The bicentenary of Australia was celebrated in 1970 on the 200th anniversary of Captain James Cook landing and claiming the land, and again in 1988 to celebrate 200 years of permanent European settlement.-1970:...
. That same day she also sang in the world premiere of Peter Sculthorpe
Peter Sculthorpe
Peter Joshua Sculthorpe AO OBE is an Australian composer. Much of his music has resulted from an interest in the music of Australia's neighbours as well as from the impulse to bring together aspects of native Australian music with that of the heritage of the West...
's Child of Australia at the Opera House, with narrator John Howard
John Howard (Australian actor)
John Howard is an Australian stage and screen actor. Howard is best known for his appearances in the film The Club, and the television series SeaChange, Always Greener, All Saints and Packed To The Rafters.-Film:Howard's first role was in 1978's My Boys Are Good Boys, in a minor role...
and the Sydney Philharmonia Choir and Australian Youth Orchestra
Australian Youth Orchestra
The Australian Youth Orchestra is an Australian organisation for young musicians. It operates the flagship Youth Orchestra as well as Camerata Australia, Young Australian Concert Artists and Young Symphonists. It also runs several other activities including master classes, outreach programmes and...
under Carlo Felice Cillario
Carlo Felice Cillario
Carlo Felice Cillario was an Argentinian-born Italian conductor of international renown.Born Carlos Felix Cillario in San Rafael, Mendoza, Argentina, he went to Italy in 1923, where he studied the violin and composition at the Bologna Conservatorio. He hoped to become a soloist but a wrist injury...
.
On 11 April 1991 she was invited to share her reminiscences in an address to the National Press Club
National Press Club (Australia)
The National Press Club is an association of primarily news journalists, but also includes academics, business people and members of the public service, and is based in Canberra, Australia. It was founded in the 1960s as the National Press Luncheon Club by a few journalists with the backing of the...
in Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
.
She sang in Melbourne during the worldwide telecast of the 1992 AFL Grand Final
AFL Grand Final
The AFL Grand Final is an annual Australian rules football match, traditionally held on the final Saturday in September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia to determine the Australian Football League premiership champions for that year...
. In 1993 and at an Australia Day
Australia Day
Australia Day is the official national day of Australia...
charity concert with Jose Carreras at Covent Garden before Prince Charles
Charles, Prince of Wales
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent and eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Since 1958 his major title has been His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. In Scotland he is additionally known as The Duke of Rothesay...
. That year she received an Australian Artists Creative Fellowship.
In 2000 she stepped in at very short notice to sing Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
in Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
for an ailing friend, Deborah Riedel who subsequently died of liver cancer at the age of 50.. The story of wearing her own jewellery is apocryphal.
Her farewell major role with Opera Australia was as Tosca in Sydney in 2002. After her final performance she was awarded the Opera Australia Trophy at a ceremony at the Opera House. In March 2003 she was given a reception in her honour by the Governor-General
Governor-General of Australia
The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia is the representative in Australia at federal/national level of the Australian monarch . He or she exercises the supreme executive power of the Commonwealth...
, Major General Michael Jeffery
Michael Jeffery
Major General Philip Michael Jeffery AC, CVO, MC was the 24th Governor-General of Australia , the first Australian career soldier to be appointed governor-general...
, at Admiralty House, Sydney.
However, she did not stop singing altogether. In 2003, she created the role of "Public Opinion", based on the Australian political figure Pauline Hanson
Pauline Hanson
Pauline Lee Hanson is an Australian politician and former leader of Pauline Hanson's One Nation, a political party with a populist and anti-multiculturalism platform...
, in the Sydney season of Opera Australia's new production of Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's Orpheus in the Underworld
Orpheus in the Underworld
Orphée aux enfers is an opéra bouffon , or opéra féerie in its revised version, by Jacques Offenbach. The French text was written by Ludovic Halévy and later revised by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux....
. On 2 June 2003, Joan Carden sang at a ceremony at the Melbourne Town Hall
Melbourne Town Hall
Melbourne Town Hall is the central municipal building of the City of Melbourne, Australia, in the State of Victoria. It is located on the northeast corner of Swanston and Collins Streets, in the central business district. It is the seat of the Local Government Area of the City of Melbourne...
to launch Australia Post
Australia Post
Australia Post is the trading name of the Australian Government-owned Australian Postal Corporation .-History:...
's new series of stamps commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
In 2006 she sang Exsultate, jubilate
Exsultate, jubilate
Exsultate, jubilate K. 165, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was written in 1773.This religious solo motet was composed at the time Mozart was visiting Milan....
in a concert at the Great Hall of the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
with Sydney University Graduates Choir, music director Christopher Bowen, who sponsor the Joan Carden Award for vocal students of Sydney Conservatorium, the concert in honour of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
.
In 2006 also, she appeared in the musical Titanic
Titanic (musical)
Titanic is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Peter Stone that opened on Broadway in 1997. It won five Tony Awards including the award for Best Musical...
, as Ida Strauss. It opened in Sydney to high praise from the critics, but the run was cut short due to poor ticket sales, and the planned Brisbane and Melbourne seasons were cancelled.
She sang at the memorial concert for Rosina Raisbeck
Rosina Raisbeck
Phyllis Rosina Raisbeck MBE was an Australian opera and concert mezzo-soprano singer. Her fine voice was basically a dramatic mezzo, with a warm middle register supporting strong top notes....
in early 2007. That year she appeared in a straight acting role in the Melbourne season of Harp on the Willow, a play with music about the life of the Irish singer Mary O'Hara
Mary O'Hara
Mary O'Hara is an Irish soprano and harpist from County Sligo. O'Hara achieved fame on both sides of the Atlantic in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Her recordings of that period influenced a generation of Irish female singers who credit O'Hara with influencing their style, among them Carmel...
, starring Marina Prior
Marina Prior
Marina Prior is an Australian singer and actress.- Early life :When she was a young child her parents returned to Australia and she grew up in Melbourne, attending Syndal South Primary School and Korowa Anglican Girls' School...
as O'Hara. In the play, Carden and Prior sang "The Flower Duet
The Flower Duet
The Flower Duet is a famous duet for sopranos from Léo Delibes' opera Lakmé, first performed in Paris in 1883. The duet takes place in Act 1 of the three act opera, between characters Lakmé, the daughter of a Brahmin priest, and her servant Mallika, as they go to gather flowers by a river...
" from Delibes
Léo Delibes
Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...
' Lakmé
Lakmé
Lakmé is an opera in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet and Philippe Gille. Delibes wrote the score during 1881–82 with its first performance on 14 April 1883 at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Set in British India in the mid 19th century, Lakmé is based on the 1880 novel...
.
She was Patron of the now defunct National Voice Centre at the University of Sydney, the Victorian College of the Arts
Victorian College of the Arts
The Faculty of the VCA and Music is a faculty of the University of Melbourne, in Victoria . VCAM is located near the Melbourne central business district, on two campuses, one - the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - on the Parkville campus of the University of Melbourne, and the other - the...
Opera, and the Musical Society of Victoria. and is a trustee of Opera Australia Benevolent Fund.
Recordings
Joan Carden made a number of recordings, videos and DVDs, including La TraviataLa traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
; The People's Diva, which showed her in rehearsal and preparation for Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
; and Great Operatic Heroines, with the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra under Roderick Brydon.
Her singing of the aria "È strano! Ah, fors'è lui " from Verdi's La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
is heard in the film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a 1994 Australian comedy-drama film written and directed by Stephan Elliott. The plot is based on the journey of three drag queens who travel across the Australian Outback from Sydney to Alice Springs in a tour bus that they have named...
.
Honours
In the New Year's Day Honours of 1982 Joan Carden was apppointed an Officer (OBE) of the Order of the British EmpireOrder of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
.
In 1987 she received the Dame Joan Hammond Award for Operatic Excellence.
In the Queen's Birthday Honours of June 1988 she was appointed an Officer (AO) of the Order of Australia
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
.
In 1992 she sang before U.S. President George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
on his Australian visit.
In 2001, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Swinburne University of Technology
Swinburne University of Technology
Swinburne University of Technology is an Australian public dual sector university based in Melbourne, Victoria. The institution was founded by the Honourable George Swinburne in 1908 and achieved university status in June 1992...
in Melbourne.
That year she was awarded the Australian Government's Centenary Medal. On 15 April 2004 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Australian Catholic University
Australian Catholic University
Australian Catholic University is a national public university. It has six campuses and offers programs in five faculties throughout Australia.-History:...
.
In 2005, the Joan Carden Award was created by the Sydney University Graduates Choir, and is awarded to an outstanding singing student at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Sydney Conservatorium of Music
The Sydney Conservatorium of Music is one of the oldest and most prestigious music schools in Australia...
.
Private life
Joan Carden is related to George Frederick Carden, a prominent Melbourne businessman, who founded the Carden Fellowship of Cancer Council VictoriaCancer Council Victoria
Cancer Council Victoria is a not-for-profit organisation which aims to reduce the impact of cancer in Victoria. It is an independent body that advises various groups, including government, on cancer-related issues....
. There is also the G. F. Carden Leukemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
Research Foundation, funding from which facilitated treatment pioneered by Professor Don Metcalfe that saved the life of many people, including José Carreras
José Carreras
Josep Maria Carreras i Coll , better known as José Carreras , is a Spanish Catalan tenor particularly known for his performances in the operas of Verdi and Puccini...
. In 1990 Joan Carden sang at Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
with Carreras and a group of Australian singers in a concert to raise funds for Carreras's own leukemia research foundation, and she made him aware of this connection.
Her 1962 marriage to a British steeplechase coach William Coyne produced two daughters, and ended in divorce in 1980. Their children are Vida Carden-Coyne (named after her first singing teacher Vida Harford), an arts administrator; and Dr Ana Carden-Coyne, a cultural historian and founder of the Centre for the Cultural History of War at the University of Manchester
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...
.
Joan Carden converted from Anglo-Catholicism
Anglo-Catholicism
The terms Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Catholicism describe people, beliefs and practices within Anglicanism that affirm the Catholic, rather than Protestant, heritage and identity of the Anglican churches....
to Roman Catholicism
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
in 1960. She sang at the funeral of Archbishop Carroll, who was both a spiritual adviser and a great admirer of her singing.
She suffered a number of heart attacks during her career, but returned to the stage each time.