Donizetti - Roberto Devereux - "Ah, ritorna qual ti spero" - Beverly Sills.

[caltrask51]

Callas is to Norma as Sills is to Roberto Devereux.

[Smile6784]

Beautiful! Stunning! The best!

[maestromuffin1]

And I love the whole thing!

[maestromuffin1]

and I LOVE the little arpeggio at 3:40, and the approach to the D at 3:57!

[maestromuffin1]

just the greatest - beverly WAS Queen Elizabeth! gotta love the scale run at 2:20!

[MonsieurDarcy]

Technical matters aside, I think each great singer brings something new to the role. What's the point of being closed-minded and acerbic when one professes to be a lover of great music? I don't quite understand the need to put other singers down because of individual preferences. I like this version by SIlls and she is great and superlative but there is a quality of her voice that I find too thin for the role. She owns the role in her own way of course, like other great singers. To each his own!

[Elisabetta611]

She OWNS that role. Like Callas owns Norma.

[mmbriggs]

there is no other soprano that even comes close to sills in this aria, let alone even lives in the same universe as sills does, when it comes to this role of elizabeta in devereux. its like trying to compare any other soprano to callas in norma--its a performance so singular in vocal and dramatic accomplishment that to say this soprano, or that soprano is better, is folly---nothing but folly. sills vocal and dramatic greatness in this role is extraordinary and of a standard unto itself!

[AulicExclusiva]

You need to hear Leila Gencer, ontebe.

[MrLupo23]

Anna learn here how to sing!

[bkmustang07]

That low B up to a high D run gets me everytime :-)

[GeorgiNM]

This is magnificent. I very much respect singers who made the effort to sing coloratura accurately, like apparently Sills, and like Callas. Montserrat Caballe, for example, and I believe this was a personal choice rather than an incapability, decided she could achieve sufficient succes even without always being meticulous in florid passages, and if we look at the appreciation she got, things more than worked out. But then again this, this is truly marvelous.

[DiegoMartinazzoli]

Sills is very good!! But I think that Gruberova sang this really better... she remains the greratest

[MrLupo23]

@DiegoMartinazzoli absolutely not! I think sills is quite more better then Gruberova.

[petelovesbevsills]

@DiegoMartinazzoli Wrong, Beverly Sills had more singing class and style than Gruberova could ever hope to have in her lifetime. Beverly also didn't have to scale up through 26 notes to hit her top ones either.

[MrLupo23]

u're raight petelove!!

[MonsieurDarcy]

@petelovesbevsills Your ad hominem remarks are quite regrettably, a shame for a cultivated listener of music. That is, only if you retract the gross exaggeration made on your part!

[petelovesbevsills]

@MonsieurDarcy Sadly, I never retract anything I have said in Beverly's favour. Ad hominem or not. I don't agree with you either. There are some "great" singers that bring absolutely nothing to the table.Sadly we will have to agree to disagree. This is a Beverly Sills upload and if someone is ignorant enough to start comparing their favourite singer with Beverly, there will be a locking of horns.

[sevoflurane]

@petelovesbevsills 28 sometimes...

[petelovesbevsills]

@sevoflurane Oh! I missed the other 2!! Thanks for doing a re-count!!;-))

[EnglishSoprano]

I can't even begin to thank you enough for posting Ms Sills performing Ah ritorna. I have listened to many, this version leaves them all drooping in the distance. Truly phenominal singing, tone, stamina; you just cannot beat this.

[andara1987]

True art of belcanto.