This segment from the Film Australia documentary La Stupenda shows opera soprano Dame Joan Sutherland performing and at home in Sydney.

Screen print of a stylised Dame Joan Sutherland with staves in the background, reflecting a sheet of music.

It was 70 years ago – on 10 September 1950 – that the 23-year-old Joan Sutherland won a major singing competition that helped set her on the road to international stardom.

Recording of Joan Sutherland performing ‘Dich teure Halle’ (Dear hall of song) from Act II of Wagner’s 1845 opera, Tannhäuser as the winner of the 1950 Mobil Quest.

Joan Sutherland performing ‘Devotion (Widmung)', composed in 1840 by Robert Schumann, at the 1950 Mobil Quest singing contest.

In 1951 Joan Sutherland moved to England to pursue an operatic career after she won the Sun Aria Competition in Sydney.