La Stupenda at the Space Needle

Joan Sutherland, dubbed "La Stupenda" by opera reviewers, departed this world a few days ago. An extraordinary singer, with, as Anthony Tommasini wrote in The New York Times, "an enormous range, from a low G to effortless flights above high C," she revived the style known as bel canto, opening a path for, among others, Cecilia Bartoli. 

Many stories of Dame Joan circled the globe this week, but not, to our knowledge, this one. Some years ago, James Barber, television's Urban Peasant, was lunching with Sutherland and Richard Bonynge, her conductor husband, at Seattle's Space Needle. It happened to be Barber's birthday, and when a chorus of waiters surrounded the table to sing "Happy Birthday to You," La Stupenda chimed in, her magisterial voice stunning the waiters and other diners and possibly giving a seismic shake to the Space Needle.

Barber told us later that one of the waiters, probably thinking Dame Joan was just a matronly lady feeling the effect of the wine (and perhaps piqued at being out-sung) went away muttering "Who the hell does she think she is--some grand diva?"