Honoree Joan Sutherland arrives at the 27th Annual Kennedy Center Honors Gala at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts December 5, 2004 in Washington, DC. (Evan Agostini/Getty Images)

Opera star Dame Joan Sutherland has broken both her legs after a fall in the garden of her home in Switzerland.

Her husband, conductor Richard Bonynge, revealed the 81-year-old soprano is expected to be in hospital for eight weeks.

The singer, born in Sydney, was due to visit family in Australia with her husband. Instead, Bonynge ventured alone to conduct performances later this month with Opera Australia.

Opera Australia chief executive Adrian Collette said Bonynge told him the accident was upsetting.

"But she was insistent that he come and conduct [Lucia di Lammermoor ]," said Collette.

Sutherland has been acclaimed for her musical intonation, and wowed audiences during the 1950s and 1960s with her Bel Canto performances. Her 1959 performance of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Royal Opera House in London was considered a breakthrough.

Sutherland's 1961 double LP, The Art of the Prima Donna, won a Grammy Award in the same year she was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire — conferring the title of "dame."