Beverly Sills

American opera singer

• Born: May 25, 1929
• Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York
• Died: July 2, 2007
• Place of death: New York, New York

Sills popularized opera by making it accessible to those with little or no experience of the musical genre, legitimized American opera on the world stage, and insisted the world recognize American opera singers as serious world-class artists. Over her career she also raised millions of dollars for charity.

Early Life

Beverly Sills (sihlz) was born Belle Miriam Silverman to Morris Silverman and Shirley Silverman. The youngest of three children (and the only girl), she was given the nickname Bubbles because there were bubbles in her mouth when she was born. Sills’s mother would play her favorite opera recordings as she did her housework, and her daughter would sing along by mimicking the sound of the words. By the time Sills was seven years old, she had memorized twenty-three arias and had the stage name of Bubbles Silverman.

Every Saturday morning, Sills had singing, dancing, and elocution lessons. The school where she received these lessons had a local radio program called Uncle Bob’s Rainbow Hour, which included performances by the better students of the school. Sills would sing on this show for four years without missing a performance.

When she was seven years old (by this time renamed Beverly Sills), a studio director from Twentieth Century Fox heard her sing an Italian aria and asked her to sing in a film called Uncle Sol Solves It (1938). After this experience, Sills’s mother arranged an audition with Estelle Liebling, a well-known voice coach. Liebling remained Sills’s only long-time singing teacher, until Liebling’s death. Liebling had also insisted that Sills learn to play the piano.

Two years later, Sills won a talent contest on the Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour and became a regular on his Capitol Family Hour, a radio show. Her work on this show led to an offer for her to appear on Our Gal Sunday, a soap opera on which Sills would work for thirty-six weeks. Our Girl Sunday tells the story of a famous opera singer who hears a young mountain girl sing and then takes her to the city. Sills’s parents, however, soon retired her from performing so that she could have a more normal life. Sills did, however, continue her lessons. She also was becoming an accomplished pianist and, to her father’s great pleasure, multilingual.

When Sills was sixteen years old (in 1945), she auditioned for J. J. Shubert, a theatrical producer, who hired her to tour with the Gilbert and Sullivan repertory company. During the time she was on tour, she finished her high school education through correspondence courses. Shubert sent her on another tour, placing her in two of the three shows: The Merry Widow and Countess Maritza. Sills later said that Shubert was the person who set her career in motion.

After this tour, Sills returned to Liebling for serious study. In 1948, Sills began performing at the Hour Glass Club, a private club in New York, and continued to sing there until she was twenty-one years old.

Life’s Work

Sills’s performances at home and abroad were highly acclaimed. The control of her voice, her range, her acting, and her pleasure in performing were enthusiastically praised by audiences, colleagues, and critics. While many opera performers went to Europe to study, Sills remained in the United States. In 1951, she auditioned for Charles Wagner and his touring opera company, with whom she performed on two tours: first as Violetta in La Traviata and then as Micaela in Carmen.

Sills had auditioned seven times for Joseph Rosenstock, general manager of the New York City Opera. While she did not hold high hopes of getting a role in his next opera, she was persuaded to audition an eighth time. Rosenstock offered Sills the role of Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus. Most of Sills’s career as a performer would be spent with the New York City Opera. In 1966, she played Cleopatra in the production of George Frideric Handel’s Julius Caesar, a performance Sills considered the turning point of her career.

The New York City Opera, at this time, had a fall season only, and the company toured in the off season. Sills performed in other cities across the country, including San Francisco, Denver, Omaha, San Antonio, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, and Baltimore. It was while she was performing in Cleveland that she met Peter Greenough, associate editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, a newspaper owned by his family. Greenough was separated from his wife, had two young daughters, was not Jewish, and was thirteen years older than Sills. After Greenough’s divorce was finalized, they were married on November 17, 1956, in the apartment of her singing coach, Liebling.

The Greenoughs had their first child, Meredith (nicknamed Muffy), on August 4, 1959. Sills gave birth to their son, Peter, Jr. (nicknamed Bucky), on June 29, 1961. One month later Muffy was diagnosed with severe hearing impairment, and shortly thereafter, Bucky was diagnosed as being developmentally disabled. For a while, Sills stopped performing to take care of her family. With her husband’s encouragement, Sills, after a time, returned to her career. Muffy would attend special schools and learn to read lips and to talk. She would travel with her mother and father when her mother performed. When Bucky was six years old, he was enrolled in a live-in school that could better meet his special needs. Sills would become national chair of the Mothers March of the March of Dimes. In ten years, she helped raise $70 million for the organization.

Although Sills’s performances were ecstatically received abroad, she preferred to focus attention on her career in the United States. The mastery of her technical and her emotional skills as a high coloratura soprano were honed before audiences who were enraptured by her performances. In preparing for a role, Sills would research the character in the literature or, in the case of a nonfiction character, the biographical and historical information that was available. In addition, she would research the time period in which the character lived.

On April 7, 1975, Sills made her rousing debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Pamira in The Siege of Corinth. Many people wondered why she had not performed sooner at this venue. It turns out that Rudolf Bing, general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, had an earlier feud with Sills, but after his retirement, the new general manager welcomed her.

Sills announced her retirement from professional singing on January 9, 1978, and gave her final performance of a complete opera as a prima donna in Gian Carlo Menotti’s La Loca at the New York City Opera. On October 27, 1980, Sills’s final public singing performance of any length was at her farewell gala, again at the New York City Opera.

Upon her retirement, Sills became codirector of New York City Opera with Julius Rudel. However, he resigned suddenly on December 13, 1978, and Sills became the sole director (effective July 1, 1979). The New York City Opera was declining in popularity, and Sills had to deal with falling ticket sales and negative reviews. She would consolidate two seasons into one season that was marked to run from July until December. Her research showed that those persons who attended New York City Opera performances were less likely to leave the city during the summer. Changing the opera’s schedule to include the summer months would thus lead to increased ticket sales from opera fans wishing to attend such a performance during those months.

Sills received an Emmy Award in 1975 and was invited to sing at the White House for three presidents: Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, and Jimmy Carter. Along the way, she received the Congressional Medal of Freedom. Other awards and honors include New York City’s Handel Medallion for Achievement in the Arts (1974) and the Pearl S. Buck Women’s Award (1979). She received honorary doctorates in music from Temple, Harvard, and New York universities and from the New England Conservatory of Music and California Institute of the Arts. In 1981, the People’s Republic of China invited Sills for a cultural exchange visit, and she conducted master classes while there.

In 1988, Sills retired as general director of New York City Opera, and in 1989 she became its board president. She was named chair of Lincoln Center in 1994 and stayed in that position until May, 2002, when she became chair of the Metropolitan Opera, retiring from that position in 2005. She died on July 2, 2007, in New York City, less than a year after her husband’s death.

Significance

More than any other contemporary opera star, Sills brought opera to general audiences. She made it accessible to those with no experience of the musical genre and helped legitimize American opera as an art to be reckoned with and its talented performers as serious world-class artists. She felt so strongly about American opera and its potential that, to gain exposure for the art, she appeared on television many times over her career on the Dick Cavett Show and the Carol Burnett Show, as guest host of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and even on the children’s program The Muppet Show.

Bibliography

Chapin, Schuyler. Bassos, and Other Friends. New York: Crown, 1995. This work covers some of the high spots in Sills’s career, including her trip to China.

Hutchison, Kay Bailey. American Heroines: The Spirited Women Who Shaped Our Country. New York: William Morrow, 2004. A collection of biographical entries on important women in American history, including Sills.

McCants, Clyde T. American Opera Singers and Their Recordings: Critical Commentaries and Discographies. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2004. Sills is one of the fifty-two singers profiled in this collection. Provides a critical overview, biographical summary, and list of recordings.

Sargeant, Winthrop. “Beverly Sills.” In Divas. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1973. Examines Sills’s career before she began performing at the Metropolitan Opera.

Sills, Beverly. Bubbles: An Encore. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1981. An autobiography that takes the reader from the beginning of Sills’s life through her trip to China.

Weinstock, Herbert. “Beverly Sills.” In Sopranos in Opera: Profiles of Fifteen Great Sopranos. London: Opera Magazine, 2001. A reprint of an article about Sills that appeared originally in Opera magazine. Recommended as an updated examination.

Wlaschin, Ken. Encyclopedia of American Opera. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2007. An excellent introductory source on American opera.