Word: stupendas
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...London recording of Semiramide, for example, most of the dazzling trills and turns, runs and roulades sung by Joan Sutherland were not written by Rossini but by her husband Conductor Richard Bonynge. La Stupenda's enormous success with bel canto embroidery, now emulated by a long and impressive roster of young singers underscores the most significant change in opera singing in 150 years...
Even more than tenors who try to upstage her, Diva Joan Sutherland dislikes reporters who crowd her. Last week La Stupenda, as her fans call her, hit a low note in her relations with the press...
Fourteen years ago Joan Sutherland left Sidney as an unknown typist. Last week she returned home as La Stupenda, heading her own opera company, with 145 members, for a four-week tour of Australia. Melbourne proudly put on its best bib and tucker for the local girl who made good. Bewigged footmen in period costume bowed as they opened the doors of Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, Jaguars and Daimlers for elegant women wearing chinchilla and diamond tiaras, distinguished men in white tie and tails as they passed through the chilly Australian winter night into Her Majesty's Theater. The glittering...
...forsaken Scots girl in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Sutherland was in superb voice. Authoritative conducting was provided by her husband Richard Bonynge, and there was an authentic touch of the Scottish highlands in the sets and luxurious costumes. Result was 33 curtain calls. As La Stupenda plucked sprays from Cooktown orchids for the supporting cast and kissed her husband, enthusiastic galleryites stamped so loudly that a nervous opera buff sitting below wondered: "How long can the theater stand the strain of a Sutherland tour...
...also among the season's most difficult. Without the comfort of a single stage rehearsal in one of opera's most treacherous roles, she sang La Traviata's Violetta only three weeks after Joan Sutherland's Met debut in the same role. With La Stupenda's triumph still fresh in mind, the critics expected only a nice try from La Costa. But after a faint and breathless first act, she became the very spirit of Verdi's epic courtesan. "It seemed the obstacles were all against me," she said, "but now I am really...