Customer Reviews

The Art of Beverly Sills

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I was growing up in the 70's, Beverly Sills was probably America's best known opera singer, a star who not only appeared on the opera stage, but who could also be seen constantly on talk shows, non-operatic TV specials, and even on "The Muppet Show"! I developed a love for her voice, her personal charm, her keen acting ability, and her fantastic sense of humour early on and never lost it. Sadly, in the 80's and 90's she fell into something of an eclipse, largely due to the fact that very few of her recordings were available on CD. Fortunately, DG's recent aquisition of some of her finest recordings has created a real Sills renaissance, and this compilation is perfect for every opera fan who would like to get aquainted or re-aquainted with her glorious voice. Almost every aspect of her repertoire is represented here and shown off to its full extent, from her highly dramatic Donizetti "Three Queens" portrayals, to her melting reading of Mozart's exquisite "Ruhe Sanft" to her amazingly beautiful (and formerly very hard to find) recording of the final scene from Strauss' "Daphne". A must have for every opera fan, this is Sills at her best, truly America's greatest diva!

Beverly Sills not only survived being a child prodigy - a rare enough thing among singing musicians - she triumphed in a big way. Her fertile and beautiful art is wonderfully represented on this double disc set from Deutsche Grammophon. I sense today a resurgence of appreciation for her art, and to call it well deserved is saying the least. The singing's jam packed with pure musicianship, attention to nuance, fidelity to composer and character - in a word, everything requisite to making the operatic art thrive, qualities in short enough supply today among many opera stars, and it makes this package even more attractive. Sills not only understood bel canto art, she accomplished it memorably. Highlights include 'Ah! Tardai troppo...' (Linda di Chamounix), &an unearthly 'Regnava nel silenzio...' (Lucia), which I might prefer to Sutherland's for its committment and munificence. The gone too soon Thomas Schippers conducts a great performance - how that man could possess whatever orchestra and score he worked with. Two arias from I Puritani - especially 'Vieni, vieni fra queste braccia' with the singing of the genius Nicolai Gedda as Arturo, and an opening to Anna Bolena's aria 'Cielo, a' miei lunghi spasimi' that wipes clean every memory of other versions. All that on disc 1! I had forgotten Sills' beautiful pianissimos, singing so musicianly and free of ego - her interpretation is always only her adherence to score and composer, and greater praise cant be given a classical singer. Disc 2 offers a definitive version of Korngold's 'Gluck, das mir verblieb' (Die Tote Stadt) among a number of fine versions out there. The slowest version available and I feel I'm hearing it for the first time, and with a true Viennese (Rudel) conducting! You can put this track alone on repeat and live out the day in freedom! If you dont know Sills' art, or dont remember it well and truly, this set is a fine place to begin what will become transfixion with a musical art that proves itself urgent and inextinguishable! Highest recommendation.

The Art Of Beverly Sills is the greatest compilation cd of her masterful arias and performances. It is a portrait of her most memorable roles, her vocal pyrotechnics and dramatic power. It is sad that no one has reviewed this album yet. I am honored to be the first. Beverly Sills. Her name is synonymous with opera. She is the American opera star with genuine soul, warmth, personality and electric acting ability. To those who remember her live performances in the 60's and 70's, they recall her ingratiating persona, her connection with the audience, her sense of humor, her beautiful coloratura and lyric qualities, as well as engaging dramatic flair. Equally as good an actress on the opera stage as Maria Callas, and surpassing the voice of Joan Sutherland, Beverly Sills is my personal favorite soprano. I have reasons to declare her the greatest soprano of all time.

First of all, she did not come from the European elite, or the traditional foreign class. She was born in Brooklyn, New York and has worked with the New York City Opera and the Met exclusively. Her humble beginnings were in radio and television, as a child prodigy. She was educated in music, mainly piano, and was taught by the esteemed vocal coach Estelle Liebling. She was an operetta star long before she graced the bigger heroines of opera- singing as Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus. On this cd, we are fortunate enough to hear an operetta aria which must have been nostalgic for her during recitals. We hear her in the roles that made her a star- Donizetti's Anna Bolena, whose aria "Copia Iniquia " is full of demanding higher notes, as Maria Stuarda in her coloratura/lyric aria "O Nube" and as the lovesick Queen Elizabeth I in Roberto Deveraux. We hear her as Massenet's romantic heroine Manon, "Adieu, notre petit table", showcasing off her French style to perfection. The same is said of Olympia's aria "Les Ouiseaux" from Offenbach's Tales Of Hoffman. Although Beverly excelled unrivaled in bel canto and coloratura, she could also take the risky leap into dramatic soprano. Perhaps her most challenging role was Bellini's Norma. But successfully, she won the world's attention when she appeared on Time magazine's cover as Elizabeth I in Robert Deveraux. This was her greatest moment.

This cd is a colorful, varied portrait of Beverly Sill's career. She has long retired from the opera stage (1979), but she has been active in the Met since the 80's and 90's. She is an inspiration to sopranos everywhere. With justice, she deserves the recognition as the greatest soprano of all time. For an unexplained reason, her recordings on LP were scarce, but now, thanks to digitally remastered reissues on cd, a new generation will hear her great performances. Available now are her performances in Lucia Di Lammermoor, Manon, Tales Of Hoffman, Barber Of Seville, I Puritani, La Traviata, Thais, and the box set featuring the three Donizetti Tudor Queens- Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and her master performance in Roberto Deveraux.

Thanks to DGG for this great collection of Beverly Sills' art. There are several pieces that are not found in other compilation albums -- including the beautiful snippet from The Ballad of Baby Doe, arias from Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereaux, and my personal favorite, "Was blendet so" from Richard Strauss' Daphne.

I must admit I grabbed this album quickly because of the Daphne aria, which, to my knowledge, is found elsewhere only on Ms. Sills' original LP recording. Listen to the beautiful legato lines and the strength, power, and seemingly effortless soaring of Ms. Sills voice, and you'll know why many of us regard her as one of the world's greatest singers.

My other personal favorite cut is the piece from the operetta Der Opernball. You can hear the warm smile in that beautiful voice.

These two discs have been in my car's CD player since I received them, and they help me make it through traffic every day. I highly recommend them!

Beverly Sills is one of the most well reputed coloratura sopranos of the past fifty years. This CD illustrates why she has attained such renown. First, it shows the range of her singing. While much of her work focused on Donizetti, Bellini, and Rossini, she sang about fifty roles in her career, before retiring in her late 40s. This 2 CD set provides a sense of the range of her work.

The first CD focuses on her operatic singing. The CD begins with a selection from Thomas' "Mignon," culminating in "Je suis Titania la blonde." Her voice is light and clear. She displays great agility. In the middle of this piece, she shows a decent but not great trill; she closes the "cut" with a series of terrific trills. Her ornamentation is nicely done.

Donizetti's "Linda di Chamounix" was another of Sills' characters. "Ah! Tardai troppo. . .O luce di quest'anima" features more clean vocalization. The florid singing is nicely done, with well sung high notes and additional sound trills. A very agile voice on display! From Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor," Sills sings "Regnava nel silenzio. . .Quando rapito in estasi." Her voice is smooth. In the aria, she produces a set of trill after trill, each one well done, but in their totality almost overdone (I love trills, but there were almost too many!). "Quando rapito in estasi" is well sung, with much well done florid singing, with appoggiaturas, trills, and other ornamentation.

The remainder of the CD features selections from Bellini's "I Puritani," and Donizetti's "Roberto Devereux," "Maria Stuarda," and "Anna Bolena." I can say pretty much the same about these pieces as already stated before. Excellent technique, wonderful ornamentation.

The second CD begins with the redoubtable piece, sung by "Olympia," from Offenbach's "Les Contes d'Hoffmann." Well done, with good vocal effects, catching the mechanical aspects of the music. Other pieces on this side come from Mozart, Heuberger, Moore, Korngold, and so on.

One piece worth mentioning, because it captures her approach to a lighter work, from Lehar's "The Merry Widow." She sings the song for what it is, and does not overwhelm it with her voice. Compare with what Richard Tucker did to the enjoyable but rather light song, "What Now My Love?", when he essayed singing pop tunes. Enjoyable for the thrill of his voice; pretty grisly in terms of his overwhelming the music itself. That does not happen here; there is a certain pathos in Sills' singing, as warranted by the song. It suggests the range of her singing.

All in all, a good sampling of "The Art of Beverly Sills." Hearing her voice again after many years reinforces my preexisting view that she ranks as one of the best coloratura sopranos of the past fifty years. There are terrific contemporary singers who sing the same repertoire and do it well. But Beverly Sills certainly compares very well with them. If interested in an introduction to Sillsiana, this is a good place to start.

I have always loved the flowing, plaintive music of bel canto, and no other singer perhaps captured the synthesis of fioritura and expression so perfectly as Beverly Sills. Callas may have been a supreme dramatist, but Beverly Sills had a better command of the fioritura that skyrocketed her career during the 60s and 70s. It is indeed sad that America has lost one of its national treasures yesterday when Beverly Sills passed away in Manhattan. She truly was one of the greatest. Just listen to her singing any one of Donizetti's three queens and you will know what I mean. She is exemplary not only in Donizetti though. Her Manon is still the best, her Violetta in par with Callas, her Louise the most idiomatic ever recorded, her Fille du Regiment a joy, Linda di Chamounix ecstatic, and Gilda a lesson in the art of light Verdi. She was a supreme painter of characters. Has there ever been a more brilliant Zerbinetta? And how many singers have been able to truly convey the youth of Elvira in Puritani? In Rossini, she was also unparalleled in L'Assedio di Corinto, the role that she made her La Scala debut in. Beverly Sills was one of a great many singers who belonged to a great golden age of singing, and I am thankful that I was born into the right time to hear her glorious work. This CD is a wonderful compilation of the brand of singing that she brought into the lives of many an opera fan for years and years to come.

I met this singer last fall in New York. A few months later, I saw her again hosting the opera quiz at the Met. Little did I know that about five months later, she would forever rest in the peace that she deserved for so long. Rest in peace Beverly. And brava...brava for the many years of wonderful singing that you gave us.

Interesting: a host of very gushy reviews on Amazon.com and none to be found on Amazon uk - but surely her fame crossed the Atlantic? Now I think of it, growing up on a diet of sometimes parochial, chauvinistic "Gramophone" reviews, I was prejudiced by them to the point that I believed she was markedly inferior to Callas, Sutherland and Caballé, and until I knew better I heard what I was told to hear: a shrill, shallow, tremulous voice of no especial distinction. Over the years I have indeed learned better and now stand amazed and actually rather annoyed that I could have been so cheated by the British music establishment. This is not to say that I cannot hear faults in Sills' voice, but I hear so much which is magical and not just in vocal terms: she was clearly a first class actress and a highly thoughful, intelligent artist. Following her decease, it is time for a major reassessment, now that we have so few voices of her calibre.

If you need convincing, the best place to start here in this compilation is not with her famed coloratura fireworks in Donizetti or even with the charming coquetry of her Manon, but in the more unexpected territory on the second disc: the aria from Mozart's "Zaide": "Ruhe sanft, mein holdes Leben", then "Glück, das mir verblieb" from Korngold's "Die Tote Stadt"; then the exquisite Strauss song "Breit über mein Haupt"; three extraordinarily poised and beautiful accounts from composers for which she was not renowned, yet I can play them over and over, never tiring of them when sung like this. By all accounts, Sills would have liked to move into a different repertoire, especially Strauss, but her voice never developed the requisite lushness, remaining pure and light. She paid the toll for going for broke in singing Donizetti's Three Queens with and trying to inject more venom, lower register and heft into her characterisations and in many ways it was worth it, but I still treasure these souvenirs of what might have been and is gorgeous as it stands. She is ably accompanied, mostly by Rudel, who understands how to court sentimenatlity but stop short of Schmaltz. I had forgotten how totally she was in control of her trill - rare today - and had certainly exaggerated in my memory any incipient stridency in her top notes - at least, that is scarcely in evidence in this selection. I urge all lovers of the lyric soprano voice to acquire this double CD: great singing by a great lady.

FOR THOSE WHO WANT A SAMPLER, IT IS THE BEST. YET, IT LEAVES YOU PINING FOR THE ITEMS SILLS NEVER RECORDED IN THEIR ENTIRETY. MORE STRAUSS, MORE OF EVERYTHING. A DEFINITIVE VOICE. HER LUCIA IS UNSURPASSED.

Just buy this CD. Beverly Sills at her best. And why, oh why, did the reviewer, who loved the cd, only give it two stars? Must have been a computer glitch! Anyway, enjoy this outstanding disc!

Here, now, then and finally, is the last will and testament of Beverly Sills.

She was an artist of such talent that she reached for the stars. Sometimes that reach sought just beyond what her ultimately earthbound talents would allow. But, even in such times, the very fact that she reached beyond what others thought prudent elevated her to a higher plain.

Her singing was not always perfect. But she so consistently reached beyond what many others would even dare, she earned our never ending gratitude, respect and love.

Here was a supreme artist, make no mistake about it. She never sought, nor accepted, the safety net super stardom can offer. She was always willing to step beyond herself, into the void, if you will, in order to attain the unattainable. Amazingly, she often succeeded.

Once Beverly Sills' career finally hit its' stride, surprisingly late in her career, and she could, as they say, pretty much write her own ticket, she knew exactly what she wanted to do. There were personal goals she sought to obtain. There were roles she wanted to sing, regardless of the negative advice she sometimes received. Two such roles I personally know of were Richard Strauss' Marschallin and Ariadne. She had very specific ideas about these roles. She fully expected that in her mature career her voice would naturally grow in the middle, exactly where Strauss' heroines lived. However, that simply did not happen. She realized these roles, meant to be the capstones on her remarkable career, would remain outside her grasp. She abandoned them, and never looked back. There were other roles, perhaps more suitable to her vocal gifts she simply had no interest in and never sang, or at least never sang in her maturity.

As with all great artists, Beverly Sills was one of a kind. Nothing quite like her had ever existed before. And nothing quite like her has come along since.