The Divine Fragility of Beverly Sills

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Category:

Music

Tags:

• Scala
• 1969
• Beverly
• Sills
• Palmira
• Rossini
• Assedio
• di
• Corintho

[kc55mo]

There is no doubt that Sills' voice became worn before she retired. However, no one made me believe what she was selling more than she does. Her total commitment and passion were extraordinary. I love Sutherland and Caballe for their extraordinary talent but I love Sills because she sang each character as if being that person was the most important thing in the world at that moment.

[LohengrinT]

@kc55mo

yes indeed it took me 15 years to discover her 2-3 roles where she was truly Divine (Palmira, Marie and Cleopatra) because due to her obsession with Callas she kept singing roles she couldnt sing (Norma Bolena Elisabeta) even in her dreams

In these 2-3 roles she was truly divine

Btw after 21 years I still havent found any role or performance where Horne was truly divine, so I lost my hope

[DemisLian]

@LohengrinT When you say she couldn't sing Elisabeta.... surely you can't mean the role in Roberto Deveraux...! I have the live DVD from Wolf's Trapp and she is perfect beyond words.

In the other DVD I have of her as Marie... her "divine role", I don't like her actually. She sounds outdated and she sings it in English. 

[LohengrinT]

@DemisLian

the reason u think she is fabulous in Devereux is because u have never heard how this role is supposed to be sung - she has molested it ;)

[DemisLian]

@LohengrinT Well ok, I don't have any other recording of this amazing opera, Callas never touched it unfortunatelly.... But Beverly creates a tragic heroine that "convinces" me. And I'm not a musician to go buy the partitura to learn it and imagine how someone else should have sung it. This is what I have, one Devereux, one Vestale, one Agnese, one Pirata, one Poliuto...

Do you have another, more true-to-the-composer, recorded interpretation to suggest?

[LohengrinT]

@DemisLian

none, a truly great performance of Devereux did not occur in the 20th century

[kgarmaker123]

I absolutely adore Beverly Sills in this opera, in this role, she is a senstive and sublime singer.. I miss her.

[motardbear15]

Miss Sills is not only a voice (here) "she" is an "anima" ! She is also an instrument of the orchestra...To me , she has been definetly the ONLY one who undestound all what Callas brought to the operatic world

[LohengrinT]

@WiseMonkey888

in the studio one the wobble has begun

Sutherland was very very efficient as Norma, descent, Sills was LOL also as Bolena (uber screamy LOL) also as Elisabetta (hearing a canary screaming to prove she was assoluta).

Sad spectacles driven by psychopathic ambition

[LohengrinT]

@90lysander

it is extremely sad spectacle to see an Opera Singer trapped within an environment of idiotic gays that actually decide what the singer should sing. Same thing has happened to Gruberova the last 15 years - same thing with Sutherland - I dont mind that 80% of opera fans are gays, I do mind that their complete lack of respect towards Music leads the opera singers into singing atrociously

It is the Gay Mafia you know :))

[LohengrinT]

@90lysander

she was also atrocious as Manon and Thais because she had lost her voice when she sang those roles plus she never had the lower voice to sing those roles to begin with. In her poor mind (she was incredibly stupid) she thought she had a lower register thus isntead of staying in the upper tuned pure coloratura roles she went into pretending she was Callas - her courtyard (the staccati lovers) preotected her for many years - truth at the end always comes out ;)

[LohengrinT]

@90lysander

well I wont study the entire catalog of Sills, like I did with Sutherland, to locate the very very very! few moments she was truly Divine, I lost my patience with Sutherland ahahahaha

Yes Sills was atrocious as Bolena, Norma and Elisabetta (at last we can say that without the fear of the Sillsian Queens :)) but indeed she had her true moments of Divinity as Palmira (in La Scala not in her studio one) and as Marie and Cleopatra (although as Cleopatra she acted terribly)