39 Facts About Beverly Sills

Beverly Sills was an American operatic soprano whose peak career was between the 1950s and 1970s.

Beverly Sills was largely associated with the operas of Donizetti, of which she performed and recorded many roles.

Beverly Sills's sang with scrupulous musicianship, rhythmic incisiveness and a vivid sense of text.

Beverly Sills lent her celebrity to further her charity work for the prevention and treatment of birth defects.

Beverly Sills was born Belle Miriam Silverman in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York City, to Shirley Bahn, a musician, and Morris Silverman, an insurance broker.

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Beverly Sills's was raised in Brooklyn, where she was known, among friends, as "Bubbles" Silverman.

Beverly Sills's attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, as well as Manhattan's Professional Children's School.

At the age of three, Beverly Sills won a "Miss Beautiful Baby" contest, in which she sang "The Wedding of Jack and Jill".

In 1945, Sills made her professional stage debut with a Gilbert and Sullivan touring company produced by Jacob J Shubert, playing twelve cities in the US and Canada, in seven different Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

Beverly Sills's sang under the pseudonym of "Vicki Lynn", as she was under contract to Shubert.

Beverly Sills sang "Romany Life" from Victor Herbert's The Fortune Teller.

Beverly Sills's toured North America with the Charles Wagner Opera Company, in the fall of 1951 singing Violetta in La traviata and, in the fall of 1952, singing Micaela in Carmen.

Beverly Sills's had two children with Greenough, Meredith in 1959 and Peter, Jr.

Beverly Sills restricted her performing schedule to care for her children.

In 1962, Beverly Sills sang the title role in Massenet's Manon with the Opera Company of Boston, the first of many roles for opera director Sarah Caldwell.

Beverly Sills made her "unofficial" Met debut at a Lewisohn Stadium summer concert performance as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, though nothing further came of this other than offers from Rudolf Bing for roles such as Flotow's Martha.

In subsequent seasons at the NYCO, Beverly Sills had great successes in the roles of the Queen of Shemakha in Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel, the title role in Manon, Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, and the three female leads Suor Angelica, Giorgetta, and Lauretta in Puccini's trilogy Il trittico.

In 1969, Beverly Sills sang Zerbinetta in the American premiere of the 1912 version of Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos with the Boston Symphony.

The title was appropriate because Beverly Sills had purposely limited her overseas engagements because of her family.

Beverly Sills underwent successful surgery for ovarian cancer in late October 1974 .

Beverly Sills attempted to downplay her animosity towards Bing while she was still singing, and even in her two autobiographies.

Beverly Sills was a recitalist, especially in the final decade of her career.

Beverly Sills's sang in mid-size cities and on college concert series, bringing her art to many who might never see her on stage in a fully staged opera.

Beverly Sills's sang concerts with a number of symphony orchestras.

Beverly Sills continued to perform for New York City Opera, her home opera house, essaying new roles right up to her retirement, including the leading roles in Rossini's Il Turco in Italia, Franz Lehar's The Merry Widow and Gian Carlo Menotti's La Loca, an opera commissioned in honor of her 50th birthday.

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La Loca was the first work written expressly as a vehicle for Beverly Sills and was her last new role, as she retired the following year.

Sills hosted her own talk show, Lifestyles with Beverly Sills, which ran on Sunday mornings on NBC for two years in the late 1970s; it won an Emmy Award.

Down-to-earth and approachable, Beverly Sills helped dispel the traditional image of the temperamental opera diva.

Beverly Sills's resigned as Met chairwoman in January 2005, citing family as the main reason .

Beverly Sills's stayed long enough to supervise the appointment of Peter Gelb, formerly head of Sony Classical Records, as the Met's general manager, to succeed Joseph Volpe in August 2006.

Beverly Sills's said she did not sing anymore, even in the shower, to preserve the memory of her voice.

Beverly Sills's is buried in Sharon Gardens, the Jewish division of Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.

Beverly Sills's was survived by her two children and three step-children from Peter Greenough's first marriage.

Beverly Sills's sang with scrupulous musicianship, rhythmic incisiveness and a vivid sense of text.

Beverly Sills received many honors and awards from the 1970s through her final years.

Beverly Sills was a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

Beverly Sills recorded nine solo recital albums of arias and songs, and was soprano soloist on a 1967 recording of Mahler's Symphony No 2.

Beverly Sills's starred in eight opera productions televised on PBS and several more on other public TV systems.

Beverly Sills's participated in such TV specials as A Look-in at the Met with Danny Kaye in 1975, Sills and Burnett at the Met, with Carol Burnett in 1976, and Profile in Music, which won an Emmy Award for its showing in the US in 1975, although it had been recorded in England in 1971.