Joan Sutherland: The Reluctant Diva
A 60 min documentary for BBC4

View this clip on the DCD Media Showreel

2007 Worldfest Houston - Gold Remi prize

Joan Sutherland was an unremarkable soprano from Australia until a decision in 1959 by David Webster, General Administrator of the Royal Opera House, changed her life. The doyen of Italian conductors Tullio Serafin recommended her for a Donizetti opera he was to conduct and which Franco Zeffirelli was to direct, based on a Walter Scott novel. Sutherland’s roots were Scottish, so there was an immediate affinity, but at the time English-speaking singers were generally frowned upon, so it was a major risk to offer her the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor.

Sutherland was shy and unselfconfident, with a big voice, big shoulders and a tiny bosom that used to be padded for her early roles. Enter Zeffirelli, who gave her a huge hug, told her to take her clothes off, and gradually drew the swan out of the ugly duckling. This programme is largely the story of that transformation, and of a trust which grew that allowed Zeffirelli to release the passion in her, making her run up and down with her back to the audience, delivering her most difficult passages – such as Lucia’s extraordinary Mad Scene.

Having sung unnoticed at Covent Garden for seven years, she was now an overnight sensation. The BBC broke its schedules to broadcast her performance. Callas heaped praise on her, the Italians dubbed her ‘La Stupenda’, and she went on to star in a number of Italian operatic roles well-suited to her breathtaking technical facility. After Callas, hers was the greatest operatic career of the late twentieth century. She worked with Zeffirelli again, opened new belcanto repertoire, performed previously neglected French works – but her hallmark throughout was a down-to-earth sincerity released from the shackles of a Calvinist background to thrill audiences all over the world.

Focusing on Lucia di Lammermoor and Alcina, the two roles that launched her onto the international stage, we recount the rise of this extraordinary performer with exclusive contributions from Sutherland herself, along with her friends and colleagues, including Franco Zeffirelli, Marilyn Horne, Sherrill Milnes, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, husband and conductor Richard Bonynge, Julie Andrews and Alan Sievewright.