A report on Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Metropolitan Opera

She was engaged by the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as a utility soprano, and made her debut there on 28 October 1952, as the First Lady in The Magic Flute, followed in November by a few performances as Clotilde in Vincenzo Bellini's opera Norma, with Maria Callas as Norma.

Sutherland sang Lucia to great acclaim in Paris in 1960 and, in 1961, at La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera.

Schwarzkopf made her American concert debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on October 28 and 29, 1954, in Strauss's Four Last Songs and the closing scene from Capriccio with Fritz Reiner conducting; her Carnegie Hall debut was a Lieder recital on 25 November 1956; her American opera debut was with the San Francisco Opera on 20 September 1955 as the Marschallin, and her debut at the Metropolitan Opera on 13 October 1964, also as the Marschallin.

Don Giovanni (Carlo Maria Giulini, Philharmonia Orchestra) (Warner Classics 1959) with Joan Sutherland as Donna Anna.

Turandot as Liù (Tullio Serafin, La Scala Orchestra; 1957 EMI Classics) Callas as Turandot

In December of that year, she auditioned for Edward Johnson, general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, and was favorably received: "Exceptional voice—ought to be heard very soon on stage".

Other celebrated singers who debuted at the Met during Bing's tenure include: Roberta Peters, Victoria de los Ángeles, Renata Tebaldi, Maria Callas, who had a bitter falling out with Bing over repertoire,, Birgit Nilsson, Joan Sutherland, Régine Crespin, Mirella Freni, Renata Scotto, Montserrat Caballé, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Anna Moffo, James McCracken, Carlo Bergonzi, Franco Corelli, Alfredo Kraus, Plácido Domingo, Nicolai Gedda, Luciano Pavarotti, Jon Vickers, Tito Gobbi, Sherrill Milnes, and Cesare Siepi.

In 1952, she made her London debut at the Royal Opera House in Norma with veteran mezzo-soprano Ebe Stignani as Adalgisa, a performance which survives on record and also features the young Joan Sutherland in the small role of Clotilde.

Don Giovanni—Gottlob Frick (Commendatore), Luigi Alva (Don Ottavio), Graziella Sciutti (Zerlina), Joan Sutherland (Donna Anna), Piero Cappuccilli (Masetto), Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (Donna Elvira), Eberhard Wächter (Don Giovanni), Heinrich Schmidt, Giuseppe Taddei (Leporello), London Philharmonia Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini. Recorded 1959—EMI 0724356787353

Walter Legge, husband of diva Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, attributed this sound to the "extraordinary formation of her upper palate, shaped like a Gothic arch, not the Romanesque arch of the normal mouth".