Beverly Sills
Although she sang a repertoire from Handel and Mozart to Puccini, Massenet and Verdi, she was especially renowned for her performances in coloratura soprano roles in live opera and recordings.
[1] NPR said her voice was "Capable of spinning a seemingly endless legato line, or bursting with crystalline perfection into waves of dazzling fioriture and thrilling high notes.
Liebling encouraged her to audition for CBS Radio's Major Bowes' Amateur Hour, and on October 26, 1939, at the age of 10, Sills was the winner of that week's program.
In her 1987 autobiography, she credits that tour with helping to develop the comic timing she soon became famous for: "I played the title role in Patience... a very funny, flaky girl.
Sills made her operatic stage debut as Frasquita in Bizet's Carmen with the Philadelphia Civic Grand Opera Company on February 14, 1951 (erroneously listed in most references as 1947).
On September 15, 1953, she made her debut with the San Francisco Opera as Helen of Troy in Boito's Mefistofele and also sang Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni the same season.
In a step outside of the repertoire she is commonly associated with, Sills gave four performances of the title role of Aida in July 1954 in Salt Lake City.
On October 29, 1955, she first appeared with the New York City Opera as Rosalinde in Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus, which received critical praise.
Although Sills drew critical praise for her coloratura technique and for her performance, she was not fond of the latter role; she observed that she often passed the time between the two arias and the finale addressing holiday cards.
Sills also made her "unofficial" Met debut at a Lewisohn Stadium summer concert performance as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, though nothing further came of this other than offers from Rudolf Bing for roles such as Flotow's Martha.
Home video-taped copies circulated among collectors for years afterwards, often commanding large sums on Internet auction sites (the performance was released commercially in 2006, garnering high praise).
The second major event of the year was her debut as Pamira in Rossini's The Siege of Corinth at La Scala, a success that put her on the cover of Newsweek.
In South America, she sang in the opera houses of Buenos Aires and Santiago, a concert in Lima, Peru, and appeared in several productions in Mexico City, including Lucia di Lammermoor with Luciano Pavarotti.
During this period, she made her first television appearance as a talk-show personality in May 1968 on Virginia Graham's Girl Talk, a weekday series syndicated by ABC Films.
[10] Following Sir Rudolf Bing's departure as director, Sills finally made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera on April 7, 1975 in The Siege of Corinth, receiving an eighteen-minute ovation at her curtain call.
Other operas she sang at the Met include La Traviata,[11] Lucia di Lammermoor, Thaïs, and Don Pasquale (directed by John Dexter).
[14] Although Sills' voice type was characterized as a "lyric coloratura", she took a number of heavier spinto and dramatic coloratura roles more associated with heavier voices as she grew older, including Bellini's Norma, Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia (with Susanne Marsee as Orsini) and the latter composer's "Three Queens", Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Elisabetta in Roberto Devereux (opposite Plácido Domingo in the title part).
She was admired in those roles for transcending the lightness of her voice with dramatic interpretation, although it may have come at a cost: Sills later commented that Roberto Devereux shortened her career by at least four years.
[citation needed] Sills popularized opera through her talk show appearances, including Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, David Frost, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, and Dinah Shore.
She resigned as Met chairwoman in January 2005, citing family as the main reason (she had to place her husband, whom she had cared for over eight years, in a nursing home).
She stayed long enough to supervise the appointment of Peter Gelb, formerly head of Sony Classical Records, as the Met's general manager, to succeed Joseph Volpe in August 2006.
Sills's voice has been variously described as "rich, supple", "silvery", "precise, a little light", "multicolored", "robust and enveloping", with "a cutting edge that can slice through the largest orchestra and chorus", soaring easily above high C.[1][18][19] Her technique and musicianship have been much praised.
[18] The New York Times writes that "she could dispatch coloratura roulade (music) and embellishments, capped with radiant high Ds and E-flats, with seemingly effortless agility.
