Jewish Opera Singers - Beverly Sills, Robert Merrill, Richard Tucker, Jan Peerce, Neil Shicoff, ISA Kremer, Alexander Kipnis, Igor Gorin (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 28. Chapters: Beverly Sills, Robert Merrill, Richard Tucker, Jan Peerce, Neil Shicoff, Isa Kremer, Alexander Kipnis, Igor Gorin, Leo Slezak, Dezs Ernster, Roberta Peters, Gunter Reich, George London, Joseph Schmidt, Rinat Shaham, Rosa Raisa, Joshua Hecht, Adolf Robinson, Judith Raskin, Friedrich Schorr, Hans Erl, Bat-Sheva Zeisler, Heinrich Kreuzer, Roza Csillag, Paul Kalisch. Excerpt: Beverly Sills (May 25, 1929 - July 2, 2007) was an American operatic soprano whose peak career was between the 1950s and 1970s. In her prime she was the only real rival to Joan Sutherland as the leading bel canto stylist. Although she sang a repertoire from Handel and Mozart to Puccini, Massenet, Wagner, and Verdi, she was known for her performances in coloratura soprano roles in live opera and recordings. Sills was largely associated with the operas of Donizetti, of which she performed and recorded many roles. Her signature roles include the title role in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, the title role in Massenet's Manon, Marie in Donizetti's La fille du regiment, the three heroines in Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann, Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Violetta in Verdi's La traviata, and most notably Elisabetta in Roberto Devereux. After retiring from singing in 1980, she became the general manager of the New York City Opera. In 1994, she became the Chairman of Lincoln Center and then, in 2002, of the Metropolitan Opera, stepping down in 2005. Sills lent her celebrity to further her charity work for the prevention and treatment of birth defects. Sills was born Belle Miriam Silverman in Brooklyn, New York to Shirley Bahn (nee Sonia Markovna), a musician, and Morris Silverman, an insurance broker. Her parents were Jewish immigrants from Odessa, Ukraine (then part of Russia) and Bucharest, Romania. She was raised in Brooklyn, where she w...