QUOTE OF THE DAY - MAY 25, 2017: BEVERLY SILLS ON THE PRIMARY FUNCTION OF ART

Beverly Sills

Today’s Quote of the Day comes to us from the late 20th century American soprano Beverly Sills, who would have turned 88 today.

The world renowned and highly accoladed starlet – known affectionately as “Bubbles Silverman” (a name the singer used as a child radio star) – would begin her operatic career with a successful run with the Philadelphia Civic Opera and the New York City Opera, where she appeared to solid critical reviews as Rosalinde in Johann Strauss' (II) Die Fledermaus.

But it would be in the late 1960’s that Sills would soar to international fame, following her role as Cleopatra in George Frideric Handel’s Julius Caesar.

Beloved abroad and at home (superstar soprano Leontyne Price is said to have remarked of the singer that she found herself: “flabbergasted at how many millions of things she can do with a written scale”), Sills incredibly dynamic voice continues to amaze – and mystify – fans of the opera and the art of coloratura to this day.

“A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.”

- Beverly Sills, 25 May 1929 - 2 July 2007

Enjoy below one of my favorite performances by Ms. Sills – performing the stratospheric "Dal soggiorno degli estinti” from Gioachino Rossini’s L'Assedio di Corinto (Le siège de Corinthe):



-Rose.

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