Dame Joan Alston Sutherland

Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM AC DBE, was an Australian-born internationally renowned dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s.

One of the most remarkable female opera singers of the 20th century, she was dubbed La Stupenda by a La Fenice audience in 1960 after a performance of the title role in Handel's Alcina. She possessed a voice of beauty and power, combining extraordinary agility, accurate intonation, "supremely" pinpoint staccatos, a splendid trill and a tremendous upper register, although music critics often complained about the imprecision of her diction. Her friend Luciano Pavarotti once called Sutherland the "Voice of the Century"; Montserrat Caballé described the Australian's voice as being like "heaven". Sutherland was the first Australian to win a Grammy Award, for Best Classical Performance – Vocal Soloist (with or without orchestra) in 1962.

• From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Sutherland, accessed 1 September 2018.

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• https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/oct/11/dame-joan-sutherland-...

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Joan Sutherland was born in Sydney and studied piano and voice with her mother from a young age. In 1951 she won Australia’s pre-eminent opera competition the ‘Sun Aria’ before moving to London to study at the Royal College of Music. Sutherland’s breakthrough performance came at London’s Covent Garden in 1959 in the title role of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. Her critically acclaimed performance quickly attracted invitations to perform the role in Paris, Milan and New York.

Dame Joan was a leading international soprano for three decades before her retirement in 1990. Luciano Pavarotti once described her voice as ‘certainly the greatest voice this century’.