Beverly Sills photographed in the Metropolitan Opera House in 2002. (Justin Lane for The New York Times)
Beverly Sills, the all-American diva, is dead at 78
Beverly Sills, the acclaimed New York-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 last night at her home in New York. She was 78.
The cause was inoperable lung cancer, said her personal manager, Edgar Vincent.
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.
During her day, American opera singers routinely went overseas for training and professional opportunities. But Sills was a product of her native country and did not even perform in Europe until she was 36. At a time when opera singers regularly appeared as guests on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," Sills was the only opera star who was invited to be guest host. She made frequent television appearances with Carol Burnett, Danny Kaye and even the Muppets.
Indeed, while she was still singing, and before her 10-year tenure as general director of the New York City Opera, Sills for nearly two years was host of her own weekly talk show on network television. After leaving her City Opera post, she continued an influential career as an arts administrator, becoming the chairwoman first of Lincoln Center and then of the Metropolitan Opera.
During
her performing career, with her combination of brilliant singing, ebullience and self-deprecating humor, Sills demystified opera — and the fine arts in general — in a way that a general public audience responded to. Asked about the ecstatic reception she received when she made a belated debut at La Scala in Milan in 1969, Sills told the press, "It's probably because Italians like big women, big bosoms and big backsides."
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 "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 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."
In 1955 Sills joined the New York City Opera, which then performed in the City Center building on West 55th Street. Her loyal commitment to what at the time was an enterprising but second-tier company may have prevented her from achieving wider success earlier in her career. By the time Sills finally captured international attention, her voice had started to decline.
As early as 1970, reviews of her work were mixed. Harold Schonberg, then the chief music critic of The New York Times, fretted in his columns about Sills's inconsistency. Yet reviewing her as Donizetti's Lucia at the City Opera in early 1970, Schonberg wrote: "The amazing thing about her Lucia is not so much the way she sings it, though that has moments of incandescent beauty, but the way she manages to make a living, breathing creature of the unhappy girl." He added that Sills "delivered by far the most believable mad scene I have ever seen in any opera house."
That fall Schonberg's quite negative review of Sills's singing as Queen Elizabeth I in Donizetti's "Roberto Devereux" was strongly countered by other critics, notably Alan Rich in New York magazine. Rich reported that he had left the performance "in a state of euphoria bordering on hysteria." A magnificent opera, he added, had been "rescued from oblivion and accorded superb treatment." It was an "extraordinary accomplishment" for Sills, he felt.
For the rest of her singing career, Sills elicited divergent reactions from critics. But the public, by and large, adored her. Though most of her fans knew that her struggle to the top had been long and tough, few realized just how long and how tough.
An Early Start
Beverly Sills was born Belle Silverman on May 25, 1929, in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. Her father, Morris, was an insurance broker whose family had emigrated from Bucharest, Romania. Her mother, Shirley, was born Sonia Markovna in the Russian city of Odessa. Sills was nicknamed Bubbles at birth because, her mother said, she emerged from the womb with bubbles in her mouth, and the name stuck.
Because
Soprano Beverly Sills, who brought opera to United States popular culture through frequent television appearances, died last night at her home in New York. She was 78.
 
Born Belle Miriam Silverman on May 25, 1929 in Brooklyn, she was nicknamed "Bubbles", and started singing at age three, winning talent contests and singing on the radio.

She made her professional stage debut in 1945, with a touring Gilbert and Sullivan show, and in 1947, started singing opera as Frasquite in ''Carmen'' with the Philadelphia City Opera. She sang with the San Francisco Opera and the New York City Opera.

She married in 1956 to journalist and ''Cleveland Plain Dealer'' publishing heir Peter Greenough, and had two children with him. One was deaf and the other mentally retarded, so Sills curtailed her performances to care for them.

She returned to opera in 1962, with the Opera Company of Boston, and then reached her peak singing years in the mid- and late-1960s, singing with the New York City Opera.

She made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in April 1975, receiving an 18-minute ovation for her performance in ''The Siege of Corinth''.

At the height of her popularity in the 1970s, she was a regular guest on television variety shows with Danny Kaye, Carol Burnett and ''The Muppet Show''. She was even a guest host on Johnny Carson's ''The Tonight Show''. For two years, she had her own weekly talk show. Sills graced magazine covers, such as ''Time'' and ''Newsweek'', as an example of an American who conquered the European-dominated world of classical music.

After retiring from performing in 1980, Sills became the general manager of the New York City Opera. She became the chairman of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1994, and 2002 was appointed head of the Metropolitan Opera.

Sills had surgery for cancer in 1974, but it had been revealed last month that she was ill with an aggressive form of lung cancer, though she never smoked. She died about 9 p.m. ET yesterday at her home in Manhattan with her family and doctor at her side.