Here's sad news: uniquely talented Beverly Sills has died.
Beverly Sills, the acclaimed Brooklyn-born coloratura soprano who was more popular with the American public than any opera singer since Enrico Caruso, even among people who never set foot in an opera house, died Monday night at her home in Manhattan. She was 78. The cause was inoperable lung cancer, said her personal manager, Edgar Vincent.Ms. Sills was America’s idea of a prima donna. Her plain-spoken manner and telegenic vitality made her a genuine celebrity and an invaluable advocate for the fine arts. Her life embodied an archetypal American story of humble origins, years of struggle, family tragedy and artistic triumph. [...]
Along with Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland, she was an acknowledged exponent of the bel canto Italian repertory during the period of its post-World War II revival. Though she essentially had a light soprano voice, her sound was robust and enveloping. In her prime her technique was exemplary. She could dispatch coloratura roulades and embellishments, capped by radiant high D’s and E-flat’s, with seemingly effortless agility. She sang with scrupulous musicianship, rhythmic incisiveness and a vivid sense of text.
Moreover, she brought unerring acting instincts to her portrayals of tragic leading roles in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” and “Anna Bolena,” Bellini’s “Sonnambula” and “Puritani,” Massenet’s “Manon” and many other operas in her large repertory. And few singers matched her deadpan comic timing and physical nimbleness in lighter roles like Rosina in Rossini’s “Barbiere di Siviglia,” whom Ms. Sills portrayed as a ditsy yet determined young woman, and Marie, the tomboylike heroine raised by a military regiment in Donizetti’s “Fille du Régiment.”
This ebullient performance with Danny Kaye sums up her wide appeal as well as any: