Opera great Dame Joan Sutherland, considered by many to be the greatest coloratura soprano of all time (take THAT, Maria Callas fans!) died October 10th at her home in Switzerland. She was 83. And yes, it's terrible that I'm just getting around to reporting her death now, I know. Sorry, Joan. Dame Sutherland was no great beauty, of course, and always knew she "wasn't cut out for a 15-year-old Madame Butterfly or a consumptive Mimi." She was a big girl who played big roles. As Dame Edith Evans once famously remarked: "One of God's pranks was to make Joan an overgrown schoolgirl and then give her a divine voice." Joan may have had a huge presence onstage, but she never acted like a diva off-stage. "People talk a lot of nonsense," she once said, "about becoming a star. One is just given a talent, and it's one's duty to make the most of it. My talent was my voice." Check out that talent in the loop I made of her (left) spinning and hitting a high D as Olympia the wind-up doll in Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann. It's how I think she'd want to be remembered. No, really. It's pretty fabulous. Watch it. You might also want to check out her legendary mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor (right). It really gets cooking at the end. And yes, that's a bloody wedding gown she's wearing. What a clubkid. A full obituary can be found in The Guardian.
