Friends of Dame Joan Sutherland remember a down-to-earth diva

OPERA legend Dame Joan Sutherland has died in her home in Europe, aged 83. Videos.

IT wasLa Stupenda at her most ordinary.

Shopping for a television, during one of her final visits home to Australia, an ageing Dame Joan Sutherland found herself in a Bing Lee electronics store, faced with a climb to the right department, either by the stairs or the more user-friendly lift.

With the wit and humility that won her as many fans as her extraordinary voice, the octogenarian quipped to her companions: "When you've played as many tragedies in opera as I have, you know to take the lift."

After chatting amiably to an excited shopper, who left the elevator giddy after meeting the acclaimed singer, Dame Joan marvelled at the encounter: "Isn't it nice to be remembered?"

It was as this humble diva who never forgot her roots - and as "the voice of the century" - that she was remembered yesterday.

Her death at 83, surrounded by family at home in Switzerland, came as a relief, as Dame Joan had struggled with her health after breaking both legs two years ago.

The man who helped lift her career to its heady heights, conductor husband Richard Bonynge, was by her side.

Her injuries after a fall in her garden near Lake Geneva had limited her mobility and complicated health issues.

Better, then, to remember the soprano as she was at the top of her "unequalled" career.

Alan Jones, broadcaster and co-patron of the Joan Sutherland Society, a foundation to support young opera singers, said: "We have lost a beautiful person, friend and singer. I used to say Dame Joan and Don Bradman were the greatest living Australians ever. Now both are gone."

He recalled first hearing "that voice" when she won Mobil Quest, a singing contest in 1950 - pushed on to the stage by classmates at St Catherine's School, Waverley.

She began formal training at 18 and at 24 the mezzo soprano set sail for England, with dreams of singing at Covent Garden.

It was while studying with her future husband in London that she developed her skill for coloratura (an operatic singing style, characterised by the voice running and leaping over notes).

The couple married in 1952 and their first joint production, son Adam, was born two years later. They would work closely together through her career, which spanned 48 operas and 60 albums.

But it was her performance in 1956, in the title role of Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor, that earned her a 10-minute ovation and the nickname "La Stupenda" (the Stupendous One).

Invitations to sing with the best opera companies followed, with Dame Joan establishing herself in a class of her own.

Hers was "the voice of the century", the late Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti said. The Spanish diva Montserrat Caballe described it as like "heaven".

On many lists of the greatest sopranos, Dame Joan has ranked second only to Maria Callas.

"She had that added ingredient that you really need to have to be not just a great singer, but a great theatre artist," British impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber said yesterday. "I've never heard anybody who hasn't had the highest praise to say about her."

Her success inspired generations of Australian singers and performers, who watched on in awe as one of their own conquered her genre - and the world.

"Her influence can't be overestimated, particularly when she came back in 1974 to rejoin Opera Australia," Lyndon Terracini, the company's director, said yesterday.

"She gave tremendous credibility and was an inspiration to all the singers here. She was able to connect to a much wider audience than there was [for opera] at that time."

Terracini, who shared a stage with the diva, said she was not only generous with her talent but opened her home and heart to young singers.

After one performance of Don Giovanni, he was invited back to the apartment of Sutherland and Bonynge.

"She had shed her costume, put on an apron and cooked us all supper. That was Joan."