Beverly Sills 1929-2007
Beverly Sills, who died of cancer Monday at age seventy-eight, was the second American opera singer to also be something of a pop star. And since Enrico Caruso was born too early to enjoy the benefits of multimedia overload, it's safe to say the soprano formerly known as Belle Miriam Silverman surpassed him, as well as other less accessible divas, in mass appeal thanks to her television specials, multiple talk-show appearances, and as host of thirteen episodes of "Live From Lincoln Center" beginning in 1976.
Born in Brooklyn, Sills made opera accessible by being no larger than life herself. Opera's Cinderella ("Bubbles" to her friends) lived a rather all-too-human real life. She also did her best to democratize the New York City Opera, where she worked as general director beginning in 1980 after performing ninety roles there since 1955. She then went on to become Chairman of Lincoln Center and, in 20002, of the Metropolitan Opera. Relive the Sills myth in this somewhat hypey yet still fascinating 1971 Time magazine profile:
Has Beverly Sills left Bubbles Silverman behind? Far from it. What might be called the Bubbles dimension in Beverly Sills is the leaven that, added to her enormous talents, makes her the extraordinary personality and professional that she is. It keeps her the least pretentious of prima donnas -- earthy, quick-witted, a little bit kooky. It gives her a natural, womanly radiance that suffuses any room or opera house she is in. Moreover, it generates a zest and determination in the face of suffering, and she has known deep suffering. Her generous, open nature is also a vulnerable one; she has had to learn to steel it with stoicism. "People plan and God laughs," she says. But she laughs too -- a billowing, enfolding laugh that is all the more warming because it is born not of frivolity but of grit. Beverly habitually arrives at rehearsals with her part fully memorized, her score shut and her mind open.
And for a perfect example of Sills's opera-goddess genius, enjoy her amazing rendition of Lucia's extremely complicated and challenging mad scene from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.