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Great Lives from History: American Women

Beverly Sills

by Marcia B. Dinneen

Opera singer

A breathtaking coloratura soprano, Sills humanized opera and made it more appealing to the public.

Born: May 25, 1929

Died: July 2, 2007

Area of achievement: Music

Early Life

Beverly Sills was born Belle Miriam Silverman, the third child and only daughter of Morris Silverman, a broker for Metropolitan Life Insurance, and Sonia, a homemaker and dressmaker. Both parents were Jewish immigrants. Born with a large spit bubble on her lips, Beverly Sills was immediately nicknamed Bubbles. Her mother loved opera and often played recordings of soprano Amelita Galli-Curci. Sills began singing the arias in imitation. She debuted at age three, singing “The Wedding of Jack and Jill” for the “Miss Beautiful Baby of 1923” contest in Brooklyn and won. Sills's mother believed all little girls should be able to sing, tap dance, and play the piano; consequently, Sills started lessons. At age four, Sills became a regular on WOR's Saturday-morning show, Uncle Bob's Rainbow Hour. When “Uncle Bob” rented Town Hall to present the talented kids on his show, Sills, then only seven, sang “Il Bacio,” a coloratura aria. That year she was renamed Beverly Sills.

Sills's mother determined “Bubbles” needed singing lessons from a great teacher and contacted Estelle Liebling, who had taught Galli-Curci, Frieda Hempel, and Maria Jeritza. Liebling was Sills's teacher until her death, thirty-four years later. Following two years of lessons, Sills auditioned for the weekly Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) program Major Bowes Amateur Hour, singing “Caro nome.” She became a regular member of the cast. By the time she was ten, Sills had learned the role of Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto (1851); she was earning money with a continuing role in Our Gal Sunday, a soap opera. When Sills was twelve, she and her parents decided she needed to focus on schoolwork. However, piano and voice lessons continued.

Life's Work

At age fifteen, Sills auditioned for J. J. Shubert, one of the Shubert brothers, and was selected to tour with a Gilbert and Sullivan company. Sills sang roles in seven different operettas and learned stagecraft. She completed high school and planned to attend college, but, instead, she committed herself to becoming an opera star. At seventeen, Sills was touring again for Shubert. Although having fun, Sills realized she needed more serious study and worked on developing operatic roles. Her operatic debut came in February, 1947, with a small role, Frasquita, in Georges Bizet's Carmen (1875) with the Philadelphia Civic Opera. Other roles followed, and in 1951 Sills traveled to Paris to study acting with Max de Rieux of the Paris Opera. Back in the United States, she joined Charles Wagner's touring company, singing Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata (1853). Sills notes in her autobiography that her operatic career began in 1951, with that nine-week tour, when she sang more than forty Violettas and learned more about opera than at any other time in her career.

She had auditioned seven times for Joseph Rosenstock, general manager of the New York City Opera (NYCO), who said she had a “phenomenal voice but no personality.” For her eighth audition Sills dressed like a femme fatale and “wowed” him. Her NYCO debut as Rosalinde in Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus (1874) was on October 29, 1955. In 1958, Sills was selected to play the title role in Douglas Moore's opera The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956). To Sills that performance was a milestone in her career, her first major triumph; other highly successful roles with the NYCO were Manon in Jules Massenet's Manon (1884), Cleopatra in George Frideric Handel's Giulio Cesare (1724; Julius Caesar); Queen Elizabeth in Gaetano Donizetti's Roberto Devereux (1837), and Marie, showing her comic side, in Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment (1840; The Daughter of the Regiment).

Singing Cleopatra at the New York City Opera Premiere

Starring in the September 27, 1966, New York City Opera (NYCO) premiere of Cleopatra in George Frideric Handel's Giulio Cesare (1724; Julius Caesar); was the turning point in Beverly Sills's operatic career. She had been singing with the company since 1955 and expected the role of Cleopatra would be hers. When it was given to Phyllis Curtin, Sills was astounded. Although Curtin had sung with the NYCO, she was affiliated with the Metropolitan Opera (Met). Sills wanted the role and told the director Julius Rudel that if he did not let her or another soprano from the company sing the part, she would resign from the NYCO, hire Carnegie Hall for a recital, and sing five arias from the opera. Sills got the part. Coincidentally, the Met was performing Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra (1966). It was not well received, and music critics decided to see the NYCO performance of Handel's opera. Two of Sills's arias, sung softly and in a high range, exhibited her phenomenal breath control. The silent audience hung on every note, and when Sills concluded the arias, a roar of approval shook the house. Sills's portrayal of Cleopatra received extraordinary reviews and made her a star.

Sills married Peter Bulkeley Greenough on November 17, 1956. Greenough, associate editor of Cleveland's The Plain Dealer, was from a wealthy Boston Brahmin family. His family expressed their displeasure with overt acts of anti-Semitism. This was something Sills had not encountered while building her career in opera. She also experienced disapproval from her own family for marrying someone who was not Jewish.

Sills became the stepmother of Greenough's two daughters (another of his daughters was institutionalized), and she and Greenough had two children. Their daughter Meredith was born deaf, and their son Peter was mentally challenged. Sills and her husband moved to Boston; she offered financial support to Sarah Caldwell, founder of the Opera Company of Boston. However, Caldwell wanted her to sing; Sills eventually would sing in more than twenty operas for Caldwell. Singing became a refuge from her personal problems.

When the New York City Opera moved to its new home in the Lincoln Center complex in 1966, Sills fought for the role of Cleopatra in Handel's Julius Caesar. Her performance made her a star. Between engagements with the NYCO and other opera companies in the United States and Europe, Sills made recordings. In April, 1969, she debuted at La Scala, the pinnacle of international opera, singing Pamira in Gioachino Rossini's Le Siège de Corinthe (1826; The Siege of Corinth). Sills was a huge success and, thereafter, was in great demand to perform on opera stages worldwide. However, she still had not sung at the Metropolitan Opera (Met).

Finally, on April 7, 1975, Sills made her debut at the Met, singing in the American premiere of The Siege of Corinth to a wildly enthusiastic audience. Although Sills sang other roles at the Met, she appeared as a guest singer; her home continued to be the NYCO. Sills retired from singing in 1979; her final performance was in Gian Carlo Menotti's opera La Loca (1979). However, rather than retiring, she began another career: general director at the New York City Opera from 1979 to 1989. Sills worked to save the struggling company, which was three million dollars in debt, and put it on its financial feet. She also introduced new works and fostered the talent of young American singers. Sills served as chair of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, from 1994 to 2002, and chair of the Metropolitan Opera, from 2003 to 2005.

In addition to starring in opera, Sills made opera more accessible to the American public. In 1983, at the New York City Opera, she began the practice of using English subtitles. She also became involved in popular entertainment. Johnny Carson once told her that if she appeared on his late-night program The Tonight Show, she would “humanize opera.” She did, singing a comic duet with Carson; appearances with Dick Cavett and Merv Griffin followed. In 1976, Sills appeared with Carol Burnett on the television special Sills and Burnett at the Met. Sills had her own television show that earned two Emmy Awards and sang with Miss Piggy on The Muppet Show. She died at her home from lung cancer in 2007.

Significance

Sills was an exception in the world of opera: She was an American singer not trained in Europe. Such a background should have been a handicap and did delay her appearance with the Metropolitan Opera, but Sills worked hard at her career and achieved success. Her enthusiasm and down-to-earth demeanor endeared her to the American public. Sills was a tireless advocate for the fine arts, and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980 and the Kennedy Center Honors in 1985.

Further Reading

1 

Leff, Leonard J. “A Question of Identity.” Opera News, December, 2002, 34-40. A look at the success of Jewish-American opera singers.

2 

Sills, Beverly. Bubbles: A Self-Portrait. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976. An engaging story of the singer's life up to the mid 1970s. Richly illustrated.

3 

Sills, Beverly, and Lawrence Linderman. Beverly: An Autobiography. New York: Bantam Books, 1987. Includes additional details of her life, including the problems she had with her husband's friends and family.

4 

Tommasini, Anthony. “Beverly Sills, the All-American Diva, Is Dead at Seventy-Eight.” The New York Times, July 3, 2007, p. A1. A lengthy obituary, detailing events in Sills's life and career.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Dinneen, Marcia B. "Beverly Sills." Great Lives from History: American Women, edited by Mary K. Trigg, Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLHW_0450.
APA 7th
Dinneen, M. B. (2016). Beverly Sills. In M. K. Trigg (Ed.), Great Lives from History: American Women. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Dinneen, Marcia B. "Beverly Sills." Edited by Mary K. Trigg. Great Lives from History: American Women. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2016. Accessed September 17, 2025. online.salempress.com.