Beverly Sills, Famed Opera Singer From Brooklyn, 78
Beverly Sills, the most celebrated soprano in America and one of opera's greatest ambassadors, died last night at 78.
The Brooklyn-born diva had only recently been diagnosed with the inoperable lung cancer that killed her. She died about 9 p.m. yesterday, her manager, Edgar Vincent, said.
Beyond the music world, Sills gained fans worldwide with a style that matched her childhood nickname, Bubbles. The relaxed, redhaired diva appeared frequently on "The Tonight Show," "The Muppet Show," and in televised performances with her friend Carol Burnett.
Together, they did a show from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera called "Sills and Burnett at the Met," singing rip-roaring duets with funny one-liners thrown in.
Long after the public stopped hearing her sing in 1980, Sills's rich, infectious laughter filled the nation's living rooms as she hosted live TV broadcasts. As recently as last season, she conducted backstage interviews for the Metropolitan Opera's high-definition movie theater performances.
Sills first gained fame with a high-octane career that helped put Americans on the international map of opera stars.
Born Belle Miriam Silverman on May 29, 1929, in Brooklyn, she quickly became Bubbles, an endearment coined by the doctor who delivered her, noting that she was born blowing a bubble of spit from her little mouth.
A child prodigy, she began her vocal training at 11 with Estelle Liebling, herself a student of Mathilde Marchesi, among the leading bel canto exponents of the 19th century. Studying solely with Liebling, she debuted at 16 in 1947, in Philadelphia as Frasquita, a small part in Bizet's "Carmen." Two years later, she toured as Violetta in Verdi's "La Traviata." She also graduated from Public School 91 in Brooklyn, where she was voted "Prettiest Girl," "Fashion Plate," "One with the Most Personality," and the "One Most Likely to Succeed." She later attained near professional competence at the piano.
Sills began to be recognized as an exceptional talent after she signed with the New York City Opera, where she first performed in 1955 in Strauss's "Die Fledermaus." She was acclaimed for performances in such operas as Douglas Moore's "The Ballad of Baby Doe," Massenet's "Manon," and Handel's "Giulio Cesare," and the roles of three Tudor queens in works by Gaetano Donizetti.
Her 1958 appearances as Baby Doe would become among her best known , in a high-soprano role in a tale of a silver-mine millionaire who leaves his wife for Baby Doe and eventually dies penniless.
"I loved the role," Sills wrote in her 1976 autobiography. "I read everything that had ever been written about her. ... I absorbed her so completely in those five weeks of studying the opera that I knew her inside and out. I was Baby Doe."
By the time of her period of greatest public recognition, from about 1966, she had no fewer than 70 roles in her repertoire.
From then on she took classic bel canto roles on stages around the world, although her Metropolitan Opera debut would not come until 1975, in Rossini's "Le siège de Corinthe," only after the departure of Rudolph Bing.
Her personal favorite role was Elizabeth I in Donizetti's "Roberto Devereux."
Rather than fade into a revered senescence on her 1980 retirement, Sills came at opera with seemingly renewed vigor. As general director of the City Opera, she showed great skill in fund-raising and conducted on-air backstage interviews on radio broadcasts.
She formally retired in 1989, but returned as chairwoman of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1994, and then became chairwoman of the Met. She resigned in 2005, citing family concerns. Her husband, Peter Greenough, died in September 2006.
