Joan Sutherland

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Lore & Background

Joan Sutherland was born in Sydney, Australia, to Scottish parents and attended St Catherine's School in the suburb of Waverley, New South Wales. As a child, she listened to and imitated her mother's singing exercises. Her mother, a mezzo-soprano, had taken voice lessons but never considered singing as a career. Sutherland was 18 years old when she began seriously studying voice with John and Aida Dickens. She made her concert debut in Sydney, as Dido in a production of Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, in 1947. In 1949, as well as winning Australia's most important competition, the (Sydney) Sun Aria, Joan Sutherland came third after the baritone Ronal Jackson in radio 3DB's £1,000 Mobil Quest; Joan Sutherland won the Mobil Quest the next year (1950). In 1951, she made her stage debut in Eugene Goossens's Judith. She then went to London to further her studies at the Opera School of the Royal College of Music with Clive Carey. She was engaged by the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as a utility soprano, and made her debut there on 28 October 1952, as the First Lady in The Magic Flute, followed in November by a few performances as Clotilde in Vincenzo Bellini's opera Norma, with Maria Callas as Norma. Being an admirer of Kirsten Flagstad in her early career, she trained to be a Wagnerian dramatic soprano. In December 1952, she sang her first leading role at the Royal Opera House, Amelia in Un ballo in maschera. Sutherland married Australian conductor and pianist Richard Bonynge on 16 October 1954. Their son, Adam, was born in 1956. Bonynge gradually convinced her that Wagner might not be her Fach, and that since she could produce high notes and coloratura with great ease, she should perhaps explore the bel canto repertoire. She eventually settled in this Fach, spending most of her career singing dramatic coloratura soprano.

Reader's Guide

Joan Sutherland's significance lies in her central role in reviving the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through the 1980s. Her 1959 performance of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Royal Opera House, conducted by Tullio Serafin and staged by Franco Zeffirelli, marked a turning point. She recorded the album The Art of the Prima Donna in 1960, which won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance – Vocal Soloist in 1962, making her the first Australian to win a Grammy. Her voice combined agility, accurate intonation, pinpoint staccatos, a trill, and a strong upper register, though critics often noted her poor diction. During the 1960s, she added heroines of bel canto to her repertoire: Violetta in Verdi's La traviata, Amina in Bellini's La sonnambula and Elvira in Bellini's I puritani in 1960; the title role in Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda in 1961; Marguerite de Valois in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots and the title role in Rossini's Semiramide in 1962; Norma in Bellini's Norma and Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare in 1963. In 1966 she added Marie in Donizetti's La fille du régiment. During the 1970s, Sutherland strove to improve her diction, which had often been criticised, and increase the expressiveness of her interpretations. Her last full-length dramatic performance was as Marguerite de Valois (Les Huguenots) at the Sydney Opera House in 1990, at the age of 63, where she sang Home Sweet Home for her encore. According to her own words, given in an interview with The Guardian newspaper in 2002, her biggest achievement was to sing the title role in Esclarmonde. She considered those performances and recordings her best. After retirement, she made relatively few public appearances, preferring a quiet life at her home in Les Avants, Switzerland. Her legacy endures as one of the greatest sopranos of all time, known as La Stupenda.

Did You Know?

• Sutherland was the first Australian to win a Grammy Award, for the year 1961 Best Classical Performance – Vocal Soloist presented in 1962.
• Her singing of the Mad Scene in Lucia di Lammermoor at the Metropolitan Opera in 1961 drew a 12-minute ovation.
• She created the role of Jenifer in Michael Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage on 27 January 1955.
• In 1965, Sutherland toured Australia with the Sutherland-Williamson Opera Company, accompanied by a young tenor named Luciano Pavarotti.
• On 3 July 2008, she fell and broke both legs while gardening at her home in Switzerland.