Born Belle Miriam Silverman in Brooklyn, Sills was known as Bubbles. She grew up in middle-class surroundings, and at a relatively early age had an almost freakish ability to navigate difficult arias, such as Caro Nome from Rigoletto. She performed on radio and the stage, but studied intensively over many years with Estelle Liebling, who had worked with Rosa Ponselle and written many of the standard vocal cadenzas used in bel canto operas. Though Sills toured in variety and was billed as "the youngest diva in captivity", her official opera debut came in a secondary role in Carmen in 1947. Some of her best singing was during those years, such as in the Douglas Moore opera, The Ballad of Baby Doe, which she memorably recorded in 1959 under such budgetary limits that retakes were not an option.
Years of good work gave her the clout to demand the role of
Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare. She said later that few roles so perfectly fitted
her voice, though when another soprano was considered a front-runner for the
assignment she threatened to stage a concert at Carnegie Hall in which she
would sing Handel just to show the wrong choice had been made. Much of the
global recognition she received for the role was the result of disgruntled
music critics who were in New York for the unsuccessful premiere of Samuel
Barber's Antony and Cleopatra at the Met, but found themselves at Lincoln
Center's other company hearing Sills sing Handel with an intricacy few had
witnessed. Even in recent years, early-music experts such as William Christie
have talked admiringly of her work in that opera.
Here's "Bless This House" from above 10 inch single sided album
Thereafter, Sills received many international invitations, but had a surprisingly stunted European career. Family commitments played an important part. Her marriage in 1955 to the wealthy newspaper editor Peter Greenough, from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, removed any financial impetus, and her two children were born with disabilities. Nor did Sills' independent nature fit well in the "instant opera" machines of Europe, particularly since her position at the New York City Opera gave her a repertoire collaboration that not only resulted in her Donizetti trilogy but some of her best comic appearances, such as Queen Shemakha in Rimsky-Korsakov's Le Coq d'Or.
Her relationship with the London operatic community was
ambivalent. She made most of her major recordings there with the London
Symphony and London Philharmonic orchestras, with conductors such as Charles
Mackerras. Live performances had rather less joy.She also turned down offers
from the Deutsche Oper Berlin, as well as a Deutsche Grammophon recording
contract because she would not perform with early-music conductor Karl Richter.
She had a huge success at La Scala in 1969 when she replaced the pregnant Renata
Scotto in a new production of Rossini's Siege of Corinth. But later visits in
old productions were less exhilarating.ing that she had mafia connections in
New York. "La Scala has nights of glory and nights of despair," she
concluded.
Certainly, the Sills voice required some getting-accustomed-to time, if only because it was as unique as the mind behind it. Far from the creamy lyric soprano of Kiri Te Kanawa or the imposing timbre of Callas, Sills was a coloratura soprano without a typical chest voice that might have been a source of darker colours and dramatic weight. In effect, she was a soubrette. Though she sang light music and comic roles in Don Pasquale with great relish, she was an actor with ambitions that could only be fulfilled with roles as substantial as in her so-called Tudor Queen Trilogy. She knew that these roles shortened her career but sang them anyway, having made a loose agreement with her husband that she would not sing past the age of 50.
After retiring from the stage at the age of 51, Sills began a new life as an executive and leader of New York's performing arts community. Under her stewardship, the New York City Opera became the first in the US to use English supertitles. Then, in 1994, she became the first woman and first former artist to chair the Lincoln, leading it through eight boom years. She retired in 2002, saying she wanted "to smell the flowers a little bit". Six months later, she was back as chair of the Met - "So I smelled the roses and developed an allergy," she joked. She bowed out in January 2005, saying, "I know that I have achieved what I set out to do."
On June 28, 2007, the Associated Press and CNN reported that Sills was hospitalized as "gravely ill", from lung cancer. With her daughter at her bedside, Beverly Sills succumbed to cancer on July 2, 2007, at the age of 78. She is buried in Sharon Gardens, the Jewish division of Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.
(Edited from Guardian obit by David Patrick Stearns & Wikipedia)
