Geneva ? Joan Sutherland’s radiant soprano stretched effortlessly over more than three octaves, with a purity of tone that made her one of the most celebrated opera singers of all time.

Acclaimed “La Stupenda,” — “the Stupendous One” — during a career spanning more than four decades, Sutherland was known in the opera world as an “anti-diva” diva whose warm, vibrant sound and subtle coloring helped revitalize the school of early 19th-century Italian opera known as bel canto.

She died Sunday at her home near Geneva, after what her family described as a long illness. She was 83.

Superlatives were attached to Sutherland’s name from the moment she made her Italian debut in the title role of Handel’s “Alcina” in Venice in 1960.

Luciano Pavarotti proclaimed hers “the voice of the century,” while to English-speaking opera-goers she was “The Incomparable” for her mastery of coloratura — the ability to effortlessly sing difficult trills and rapid passages in high registers.

The late tenor Pavarotti, who joined with mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne in Sutherland’s farewell gala recital at London’s Covent Garden on Dec. 31, 1990, called her “the greatest coloratura soprano of all time.”