One of the most legendary lyric sopranos of all time, Joan Sutherland was born in Sydney, Australia in 1926. Sutherland originally worked as a secretary but soon won a prestigious Australian vocal competition. After this, she studied in London and made her operatic debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1952 as the First Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. She soon began singing in other great opera houses around the world. In 1954 she married conductor Richard Bonynge, with whom she worked with great frequency over the course of her career. In 1975 Queen Elizabeth II made Sutherland a Dame of the British Empire. Dame Joan retired from the operatic stage in 1990. She is best remembered for the bel canto roles in which she specialized, as well as various other roles, such as Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata and the four heroines in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann. She is also noted for helping the career of a young Luciano Pavarotti, with whom she often performed. Sutherland is admiringly known as “La Stupenda.”