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 this recording from Act 1 of Twilight of the Gods (Die Götterdämmerung), Australian operatic soprano Florence Austral (1892-1968) is performing as Brünnhilde.

‘Caro Mio Ben’ was recorded in the United States on 30 April 1903; it was the first recording in Victor Gramophone Co.'s pre-eminent Red Seal Celebrity series.

Recorded by Ada Crossley on 30 April 1903 during a tour of America, Caro Mio Ben was the first recording in Victor Gramophone Co.'s Red Seal Celebrity series.

John Ainsworth (Lloyd Hughes) has returned to the theatre after seeing his father in hospital.

This is an excerpt from the garden scene in Act One of Voss.

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

John Ainsworth (Lloyd Hughes) has been out of work for months when he runs into two old university acquaintances. They take a drink at a city bar, where a man selling shoelaces approaches.