This is very bad news indeed
AP reports that Beverly Sills is “gravely ill with cancer.” Sills has always been very hands-on with her PR, so if she’s allowing this story to get out, I’m afraid she’s basically announcing that the end is very near. (If she’s not in control of the story, that’s not good news either: she’d have to be very sick indeed to let that happen.)
UPDATE: Sills’ long-time publicist Edgar Vincent has confirmed earlier reports of her illness.
Dare I start a Sills essential recordings list? Here goes:
Bellini/Donizetti Recital (esp. “O quante volte”)
French Aria recital (just listening to her coloratura in “O beau pays” makes me dizzy)
For complete opera, one need only hear Baby Doe. Many may try but, as far as I’m concerned, if ever a singer owned a role, Sills owned Baby Doe Tabor.
I certainly rank the Sills
” O Luce di Quest’Anima” and Price “Depuis le Jour” as the absolute models of what effervescence and exctasy in singing are!
Re. Beverly Sills: one of my nearly-worn-out-recording is Sills’ WELCOME TO VIENNA, with Julius Rudel. Her “Wien, du Stadt meiner Traume” is a heartbreaker.
Also, I am currently putting my 65 years Opera Log of performances attended; have discovered I first heard Beverely Sills as Musetta, with Nadine Conner’s Mimi. This was in 1957 with the soon defunct Cosmopolita Spring Opera.
In that same season Zinka M. sang
Tosca with Barry Morell. The next year she was back again in “Trovatore” with Kurt Baum. SFO soon ran Cosmo out of town by starting thewir own spring season.
Pucci-
Whatever happened to that Spring Season?
Re: Original SFO Spring Season . . . According to my records, I attended the first SFO spring season in 1961, after the forced demise of the Cosmopolitan spring season in 1960.
For their first offering, SFO Spring staged Romeo et Juliette w/
Lee Venora (a beautiful Juliet), Richard Verreau, Walter Fredericks, Robert Schmorr, and John Macurdy. J. Rosenstock conducted.
The gossip among my fellow standees was that Casmo was pulling in singers that SFO hadn’t engaged yet. They were also renting props, scenery, costumes, etc. from SFO, and in many ways were showing up SFO. SFO referred to Cosmp as “That tacky little company” to which The SF Chronical added “That engaged world-class singers. Perhaps you can tell, I’ve carried a rather big chip on my shoulder.
As a Berkeley grad student who was always broke, because of Cosmo, I was able to hear the likes of Zinka, Antonietta Stella, Jerome Hinds, Dorothy Warenskjold, Coline Harvey, William Wilderman, Beverly Sills, etc.
P.S. All of my lengthy comments came about as a result of La Cieca’s news about Beverly Sills. Please indulge me a SFC story about Sills. Her career with SFO began in 1953–late summer. When she arrived in the city, no one met her, so she made her way to G. Merola’s residence, only to learn that he just died.
Penniless, she spent the next weeks in a Market Street hotel, cooking her food on a radiator, and at the opera house playing such roles as a maidservant in “Electra” and Donna Elvira in “Don G.”
That same season while she was playing a Valkyrie, her helmet fell off and she rushed to pick it up. K.H. Adler was was furious and asked if she were drunk.
Beverly Sills did not return to SFO until 1971, when she sang the title roll in “Manon.” When she arrived in her dressing room she found the same helmet filled with orchids, and a welcoming note from Adler.
That’s our Beverly S.
I just read on AP that she has died. That is very sad.
Rest in Peace dear Bubbles
Too sad but I hope it was quick – coming just before the first anniversary of the inestimable loss of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson…
I can only think of the close of Baby Doe:
As our earthly eyes grow dim
Let the ancient song be sung:
I will change along with him
So that both are ever young,
ever young.
I just saw the news of Beverly Sills’ death here at the station.
Although we all knew this was coming, we’ll still miss her, of course. Thank you, Beverly, for everything you gave us of your art and yourself; you’re in a better place now, as you deserve to be!
A big hug, and rest in peace!
Her memory is for a blessing, always. Others may be better but she paved the way for so many. I would never have known Donizetti’s three queens without her recordings. I count on all of you for your stories of La Sills.
May we all be comforted by her extraordinary spirit, her voice and her performances.