KEY POINTS:
Beverly Sills, soprano. Died aged 78.
Beverly Sills, world-renowned soprano and the most popular opera singer in the United States in modern times, rose from the ranks of singers to become a great American diva in the 1960s and 1970s.
She also expanded her career beyond performing to run two major opera companies - the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Opera.
Sills, born in Brooklyn, New York, gained international fame as a coloratura soprano, known for her brilliant runs and trills. Her debut was at the Philadelphia Civic Opera in 1947.
She performed in virtually all the world's leading opera houses, including Milan's La Scala and Covent Garden in London, as well as at New York's Metropolitan. The award-winning singer also recorded 18 full-length operas and several solo albums, appeared on television specials and hosted her own shows in the US.
Well-loved among connoisseurs and everyday opera lovers, Sills was nicknamed "Bubbles" as a child for her effervescence and striking red hair. Later in life her coloratura soprano voice added to the characterisation.
Sills was born Belle Miriam Silverman in 1929 and first appeared on a New York City radio show in 1933. Three years later, she changed her name to Beverly Sills and continued performing. By 1939, she was a regular on radio's Major Bowes' Capitol Family Hour.
She debuted with the New York City Opera in 1955 in Johann Strauss' comic operetta, Die Fledermaus, and received her first widespread acclaim portraying Cleopatra in the company's version of George Frideric Handel's Giulio Cesare.
Her breakthrough performance came during the opening weekend of a new Metropolitan opera house, on a night when "The Met" was shut. The numerous reporters in town for the opening went to Sills' performance instead, and gave her rave reviews.
Sills career began to soar and in the ensuing years she expanded the number of roles she performed to more than 70. She sang at famous opera houses around the world, including in Italy, Germany and Britain.
Her recordings included Manon, which earned an Edison Award for Best Operatic Album of the Year, and Music of Victor Herbert won a Grammy in 1978.
Sills starred in operas on television, and performed in television specials like Stills and Burnett at the Met with her friend Carol Burnett. She hosted two shows of her own: and Skyline with Beverly Sills.
In 1980, she received the Medal of Freedom from President Jimmy Carter. In October, she gave her final singing performance and accepted the position as general director of the New York City Opera.
When she took the company's reins, its finances were low, so Sills set about raising money and boosting performances. She pioneered the use of "subtitles" providing English translation of foreign-language operas.
The practice was decried by purists but loved by general audiences. She resigned in 1990.
In 2002, the Metropolitan Opera made Sills its chairwoman and, with typical humour, she explained her return this way: "I know that when I retired ... I said I wanted the leisure time to smell the roses at our country place. So, I smelled the roses and developed an allergy."
She retired from the Metropolitan Opera in 2005. She underwent successful surgery for cancer in 1974, before her recent diagnosis of lung cancer. Her husband, Peter Greenough, died in 2006 at age 89. They had two children. Both survive.
- Reuters
