... although it was the following year 1959, whcih was to be the season of Sutherland's greatest triumph as "Lucia di Lammermoor". I was not involved and so was able to to relax and take Valerie to the first night, in somone trepidation as we simply could not envisage big, kind, jolly Joan as the doomed and pathetic Lucia. Zefferelli really wokred a miracle on that first night, it was touching, convincing and beautiful. Sutherland was transformed, like Trilby under the power of a more benevolent Svengali and long afterwards one would see shreds of what he had taught her clinging to her in other roles.