The New York Times: Beverly Sills
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Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills was an American operatic soprano whose career peak was between the 1950s and 1970s.
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business · American operatic soprano (1929–2007) · actor · opera singer · autobiographer · musician · businessperson · singer · also Beverly Sills, Beverley Sills, Belle Silverman, Belle Miriam Silverman, Beverly Sills Greenough, Sills
Born 25 May 1929 · Died 2 July 2007 · Q235517
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2026· 1 entry
2013· 2 entries
Released album “Sillsiana”.
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UPI: Topic: Beverly Sills
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2007· 17 entries
Reuters: Beverly Sills, America's Queen of Opera, dies at 78
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New York Magazine: Beverly Sills Has Sung
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The Hollywood Reporter: Beverly Sills dies of cancer at 78
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Seattle Times: Bubbly soprano Beverly Sills, 78
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At the age of 78 in her home in Manhattan
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Died 2007-07-02.
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The Associated Press and CNN reported that Sills was hospitalized as "gravely ill", from lung cancer
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(I puritani simulcast), as a backstage interviewer on February 24, 2007 (Eugene Onegin simulcast), and then, briefly, on April 28, 2007 (Il trittico simulcast)
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“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.”
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“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
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“I really do believe I can accomplish a great deal with a big grin, I know some people find that disconcerting, but that doesn't matter.”
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“Art is the signature of civilizations.”
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“My voice had a long, nonstop career. It deserves to be put to bed with quiet and dignity, not yanked out every once in a while to see if it can still do what it used to do. It can't.”
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“So long as it doesn't get to the point where you don't remember whose opera you're listening to, I'm willing to experiment.”
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“Why should I go when it's going so good? … I lived through the garbage. I might as well dine on the caviar.”
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“There is a growing strength in women but it's in the forehead, not the forearm. Men will always be attracted to women with nice soft arms and a fleshy bosom.”
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“A happy woman is one who has no cares at all; a cheerful woman is one who has cares but doesn't let them get her down.”
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2006· 2 entries
Released album “Beverly Sills and Friends”.
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At the age of 89, shortly before what would have been their 50th wedding anniversary on November 17, 2006
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2005· 1 entry
Released album “The Very Best of Beverly Sills”.
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2004· 1 entry
Released album “The Great Recordings”.
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2003· 1 entry
Released album “Le coq d'or / Mozart and Salieri op. 48”.
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2002· 3 entries
Released album “The Tales of Hoffmann”.
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Career landmark: chairperson (2002–2005).
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Released album “The Art of Beverly Sills (disc 1)”.
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2001· 1 entry
Released album “The Singers: Beverly Sills”.
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1998· 1 entry
Awarded National Women's Hall of Fame (1998).
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1996· 2 entries
Released album “Rigoletto”.
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Released album “Les Contes d’Hoffmann”.
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1995· 1 entry
Awarded Heinz Award (1995).
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1994· 1 entry
Became the chairwoman of Lincoln Center and then, in 2002, of the Metropolitan Opera, stepping down in 2005
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1990· 1 entry
Released album “The Art of Beverly Sills”.
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1989· 1 entry
Released album “L’assedio di Corinto”.
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1985· 2 entries
Released album “The Art of Beverly Sills, Album 2”.
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Released album “Beverly Sills Sings Verdi”.
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1980· 4 entries
Won Presidential Medal of Freedom presented by Jimmy Carter (1980).
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Up through 2006, Sills was the host for many of the PBS Live from Lincoln Center telecasts
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Where she shared the stage with Joan Sutherland in a production of Die Fledermaus
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Became the general manager of the New York City Opera
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1979· 1 entry
Appeared on The Muppet Show, where she famously went into a "high-note contest" with Miss Piggy
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1978· 6 entries
Awarded Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year (1978).
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Released album “The Merry Widow - Highlights”.
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Sills announced she would retire on October 27, 1980, in a farewell gala at the New York City Opera (NYCO)
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Released album “Up in Central Park”.
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Released album “Louise”.
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Released album “Don Pasquale”.
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1976· 3 entries
Released album “Thaïs”.
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Released album “Plaisir d'amour”.
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Released album “I Capuleti e i Montecchi”.
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1975· 5 entries
In The Siege of Corinth, receiving an eighteen-minute ovation at her curtain call
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Released album “The Three Queens”.
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Released album “Il barbiere di Siviglia”.
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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
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Released album “Music of Victor Herbert”.
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1974· 1 entry
Released album “Norma”.
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1973· 2 entries
Released album “Anna Bolena”.
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Released album “I puritani”.
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1972· 3 entries
Released album “Welcome to Vienna”.
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Released album “La traviata”.
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Released album “A Beverly Sills Concert”.
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1971· 6 entries
Her performance in the New York City Opera's production of The Golden Cockerel was telecast live to cable TV subscribers
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Released album “Maria Stuarda”.
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Released album “Manon”.
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Released album “Beverly Sills Sings Mozart & Strauss”.
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Where she was described as "America's Queen of Opera"
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Released album “Lucia di Lammermoor”.
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1969· 3 entries
Released album “Scenes and Arias from French Opera”.
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Released album “Roberto Devereux (Elizabeth and Essex)”.
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Sills sang Zerbinetta in the American premiere (in a concert version) of the 1912 version of Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos with the Boston Symphony
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1968· 1 entry
Released album “Bellini and Donizetti Heroines”.
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1967· 1 entry
Released album “Julius Caesar”.
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1966· 1 entry
The New York City Opera revived Handel's then virtually unknown opera seria Giulio Cesare (with Norman Treigle as Caesar), and Sills' performance as Cleopatra made her an international opera star
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1962· 1 entry
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
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1960· 1 entry
Sills and her family moved to Milton, Massachusetts, near Boston
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1959· 1 entry
Released album “The Ballad of Baby Doe”.
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1956· 1 entry
Sills married journalist Peter Greenough, of the Cleveland, Ohio, newspaper The Plain Dealer and moved to Cleveland
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1955· 1 entry
First appeared with the New York City Opera as Rosalinde in Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus, which received critical praise
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1953· 1 entry
Made her debut with the San Francisco Opera as Helen of Troy in Boito's Mefistofele and also sang Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni the same season
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1951· 1 entry
(erroneously listed in most references as 1947)
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1946· 1 entry
Sills appeared as a contestant on the radio show Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts
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1945· 1 entry
Sills made her professional stage debut with a Gilbert and Sullivan touring company produced by Jacob J
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1939· 2 entries
The 17th anniversary of the show, and she appeared frequently on the program thereafter
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At the age of 10, Sills was the winner of that week's program
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1929· 1 entry
Born 1929-05-25.
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