La Stupenda: Dame Joan Sutherland

This segment from the Film Australia documentary La Stupenda shows opera soprano Dame Joan Sutherland performing and at home in Sydney.

Known as La Stupenda, we see Dame Sutherland singing with fellow opera singer Luciano Pavarotti. He calls her the 'greatest voice of this century'.

She first performed in the theatre at the Sydney Opera House that has since been named after her, in 1974. The theatre is now home to the Australian Ballet and Opera Australia as well as being a venue for staging musicals, talks, comedy and contemporary music.

Sutherland's last full-length dramatic performance was as Marguerite de Valois in Les Huguenots at the Sydney Opera House in 1990 at the age of 63. She died in 2010.

Film Australia Collection © NFSA. Full title available for purchase at the NFSA shop.

The Art of the Prima Donna by Dame Joan Sutherland was added to the Sounds of Australia registry in 2011. You can hear Binny Lum's interview with Dame Joan from 1964 in our Binny Lum curated collection.

Notes by Beth Taylor