The Very Best of Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills hardly needs an introduction. She sang on the radio as a child and on the operatic stage as a teenager; her meteoric international career was launched by appearances in several virtually unknown bel canto operas at the New York City Opera. This compilation of arias and ensembles from some of her signature roles, recorded in the 1970s, with splendid partners like Nicolai Gedda, Alfredo Kraus, and Sherrill Milnes, displays her unique vocal and dramatic artistry at its peak. Her voice, effortlessly produced over an enormous range, is bright, pure, infinitely variable in color, inflection and intensity. Her intonation is impeccable even in huge leaps, and her breath is endless. The coloratura roulades are like strings of perfect, luminous pearls, clearly articulated in seamless legato. But this stunning technique (whose only flaw is a sometimes wide, wobbly vibrato) is never used for show; every note has life and expression, serving the music and the dramatic situation. Indeed, her characters are flesh-and-blood human beings, whose thoughts, emotions and interactions, from inwardness to ecstasy, from lamentation to overflowing joy, she projects with riveting concentration. Rosina in Rossini'sThe Barber of Sevilleis a charming, mischievous minx who succumbs to delighted tenderness; Pamira's great scene from hisSiege of Corinthshows clearly why her Metropolitan Opera debut in that role was a sensation. In Verdi'sRigoletto, Gilda's hopeful innocence turns into hopeless despair: she dies, palpably, on a floating, celestial pianissimo. In hisLa traviata, Violetta's initial cool, hesitant restraint gradually melts as she opens herself (and her voice) to Alfredo's ardor and the bliss of love. The vocal balance in their final duet is uncanny; its tremulous tenderness in the shadow of death breaks the heart, as does her duet with Germont. Massenet'sThaisis sensuous; Donizetti'sDon Pasqualeand Lehár'sThe Merry Widowprovide comic relief.--Edith Eisler