After singing at La Fenice in 1960, which soprano was known as ‘La Stupenda’?
Joan Sutherland a diva with a voice out of the ordinary. She sang "Lucia" to great acclaim in Paris in 1960 and, in 1961, at La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera. In 1960, she sang a superb "Alcina" at La Fenice, Venice, where she was nicknamed "La Stupenda" ("The Stunning One"). For her performance of "Lucia di Lammermoor", standees began lining up at 7:30 that morning. Her singing of the Mad Scene drew a 12-minute ovation. Sutherland would soon be praised as "La Stupenda" in newspapers around the world. Later that year (1960), Sutherland sang "Alcina" at the Dallas Opera, with which
Death at La Fenice famous conductor, "suggested she try a crime novel. She wrote Death at la Fenice as a joke. When she finished the book she stashed it away and forgot about it until submitting it for the Suntory prize in Japan. Somewhat to her consternation, it won and she was offered a two-book contract by Harper Collins. This meant, among other things, that she was compelled to write a sequel. 'I lucked out,' she says." Death at La Fenice Death at La Fenice (1992), the first novel by American academic and crime-writer Donna Leon, is the first of the internationally best-selling Commissario