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The Australian mezzo-soprano, Muriel Sutherland (neé: Alston), married William Sutherland, a respected businessman in Sydney, running a tailor shop, after the death of his his first wife Clara McDonald during an influenza outbreak in 1919. She gave birth to two children, Barbara in 1922 and the famous soprano Joan Sutherland in 1926. Some of Joan Sutherland's early memories were of hearing her mother sing. A mezzo-soprano who would "have made an opera singer," Muriel Sutherland was urged, in her youth, to move to Europe in order to study in London or Paris. she was a fine mezzo-soprano who had studied with Mathilde Marchesi, the teacher of the Australian soprano Nellie Melba. Though too shy for the stage, she did vocal exercises every day and was her daughter's principal teacher throughout her adolescence. |
