Beverly Sills

Beverly Sills spent her entire life on stage, progressing from radio commercials to global recognition as a soprano opera singer after making her first appearance at the age of two. Across her career she assumed more than ninety opera roles. She concluded her singing in 1980, explaining that she wanted to "put my voice to bed so it will go quietly, with pride."

Born Belle Miriam Silverman to parents of Russian-Jewish descent, Sills captured first prize in the Miss Beautiful Baby of 1932 contest by performing "The Wedding of Jack and Jill." Her mother, acknowledging her abilities early, arranged instruction in dance, piano, and voice, the last beginning at age seven under Estelle Leibling. Sills appeared in several radio advertisements and performed a singing-and-tap-dancing routine on the WOR program Uncle Bob's Rainbow House. In 1938 she sang and tap-danced in the film Uncle Sol Solves It.

At twelve she briefly stepped away from performing to focus on schooling, attending P.S. 91 and Erasmus High School in Brooklyn before enrolling at Manhattan's Professional Children's School.

Producer J.J. Schubert brought her back into public view in 1945, offering short parts that led to leading roles in the operettas Rose Marie, Countess Maritza, and The Merry Widow. Those engagements culminated in her grand-opera debut in Georges Bizet's Carmen in 1947. Following her father's death in 1949, Sills toured the United States with the Charles L. Wagner Opera Company. She entered the New York City Opera in 1955, appearing first as Rosalinde in Johann Strauss' Die Fledermans.

Her private life advanced at the same pace as her work. In 1956 she married Peter Buckeley Greenough, associate editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. She withdrew again in 1961 upon learning that her two-year-old daughter was deaf and her newborn son was mentally handicapped. Both her husband and New York City Opera manager Julius Rudel later urged her to resume singing.

Although she performed with the Boston Opera Company in Mozart's The Magic Flute, Sills attained international prominence in 1966 through her New York City Opera portrayal in Georg Handel's Guilio Cesare. She remained with the company and assumed the post of general manager on July 1, 1979, succeeding Julius Rudel after his 1978 resignation.

Sills stopped singing in 1980 yet continued serving the New York City Opera. Beyond her performances, she assisted the March of Dimes in raising more than $80 million before her death in 2007.