Beverly Sills

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a download from the Desert Island Discs archive.

Speaker 10:06

The only surviving edition of this programme didn't contain the guests' eight music choices, so we've rebuilt the original show by using discs from the B B C Gramophone library.

Speaker 10:17

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:20

Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Disc's website.

Speaker 10:26

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy two.

Speaker 10:35

This is a recording of Desert Island Discs as it was being broadcast, rather than the studio recording.

Speaker 10:41

And for that reason you may hear some interference and some degradation in the sound quality.

Presenter0:47

As usual, the castaway is introduced by Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:52

On our desert island this week is the international opera star Beverly Sills. Miss Sills, how well do you think you could stand loneliness?

Beverly Sills1:01

Oh, pretty well. I'm a compulsive talker even when there's nobody around, so that I'm never at a loss for company.

Presenter1:08

What would be the greatest consolation of being on this island? What would you be happiest to have got away from?

Beverly Sills1:13

noise, I think, and in in in some respects um the pressures of the kind of life I lead, which is really a little overwhelming.

Presenter1:22

Do you get time to play discs?

Beverly Sills1:24

Yes, uh quite a lot. My husband and I are uh great bridge players and I use the music at that point, to my husband's great horror. I like to play discs when I'm playing bridge. He he doesn't like that very much and he claims that's how I get the advantage over.

Presenter1:38

Yes. Do you agree on the kind of discs you play? This is important.

Beverly Sills1:41

No, not all the time.

Presenter1:43

No. What would you want discs to do for you on a desert island? Cheer you up, remind you of the past?

Beverly Sills1:49

All that. I think I would like to have some that uh recall particular incidences of my life and um I think some that would soothe me because I'm sure I'd have rather nerve-wracking moments. What's the first one you've chosen?

Beverly Sills2:02

I've chosen the uh trio from the Rosen Cavalier.

Presenter3:06

The final trio of De Rosen Cavalier, that old 1933 recording with Lotta Lehmann, Elizabeth Schumann and Maria Olszewska. What's your second choice?

Beverly Sills3:16

I chose a Frank Sinatra singing a song called When the World Was Young because there's a a kind of sadness in his voice that I

Beverly Sills3:25

reaches me at uh strange moments. I've had

Beverly Sills3:28

We all have had difficult times, and somehow when you share it with someone like Senator, it doesn't seem quite so bad.

Speaker 23:36

Looking

Presenter3:36

Look at the sky.

Presenter3:42

Till the stars were strung.

Presenter3:49

Only last July Uh

Presenter3:56

When the world

Presenter4:06

Frank Sinatra

Presenter4:07

Missiles, you're a New Yorker. What part of New York?

Beverly Sills4:10

Brooklyn.

Presenter4:11

Hm. You began your career very early, I believe.

Beverly Sills4:13

Yes, I was a little uh wunderkind, as they say.

Presenter4:16

That's what I say.

Beverly Sills4:17

And I was on the radio when I was three, not because I could sing so well, but because I could talk so well.

Beverly Sills4:23

And um they had um schools where they taught little girls to sing and tap dance and play the piano and if you were a good girl you got to perform it on a radio show.

Beverly Sills4:31

And um at three, I don't know how proficient I was, but they used to like to hear me talk.

Presenter4:36

This of course was the great era of the Wundakinta, the Shirley Temple era.

Beverly Sills4:40

Absolutely, yes. And uh by the time I was seven my mother had a collection of Gala Cochi recordings, um with twenty arias, and by the time I was seven I could sing all twenty arias, having learned them phonetically from her recordings.

Beverly Sills4:53

And the first uh one that I did learn was Unavoce Pocofa with Madame Gallicochi.

Beverly Sills4:59

singing and I thought I was really doing quite a good imitation.

Beverly Sills5:03

And so my mother took me to my singing teacher, who was my singing teacher, for thirty-five years.

Beverly Sills5:08

Um, and I sang with a voice of pocofa for her and she burst out laughing and I burst out crying.

Presenter5:15

You were also were you were radio actors in in in a soap opera for a long time?

Beverly Sills5:19

Yes, a thing called Our Gal Sunday. I was a little mountain girl who had an extraordinary voice that floated through the hills and a very

Beverly Sills5:27

wealthy British lord and what he was doing in the United States was never quite clear. And his wife heard me sing and decided that I must go to New York to study music, and this took thirty six weeks to get me out of Powergal Sunday.

Presenter5:39

Okay.

Presenter5:41

And you did the whole lot you sang commercials to.

Beverly Sills5:43

Yes, I made one of the first singing commercials in the United States, one of the first singing jingles.

Presenter5:48

And then

Presenter5:50

You went on tour with an operetta company when you were in your own.

Beverly Sills5:52

Yeah, I was already old by then, I was fifteen.

Presenter5:55

Yeah.

Beverly Sills5:56

I did Gilbert and Sullivan. I did nine performances a week of seven different Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

Presenter6:02

That was pretty good training.

Beverly Sills6:03

Yes, it was indeed.

Presenter6:04

And you had a spell as a holiday hotel entertainer.

Beverly Sills6:07

Well, yes. I was literally making a living as a singer, and therefore I didn't turn down anything that came my way. I sang. The main thing for me was to get before a public. I really didn't care.

Presenter6:17

Had you got a goal in mind at this time? Was it opera you were aiming at, or was it just this question of earning a living and getting experience?

Beverly Sills6:21

Or what's it done?

Beverly Sills6:23

No, I always wanted to be not an opera singer, but it was an opera star. You see, I was raised in the era of the glamorous opera star. Names like Poncelle and Farrar were legends already.

Beverly Sills6:36

And um we learned about Farah being carried through the streets by her fan and entertaining royalty. And I decided not just an opera singer for me, I was going to be an opera star and have champagne sip from my slipper.

Presenter6:48

What was the first time you sang in opera?

Beverly Sills6:50

It was Michaela with the Philadelphia Opera.

Beverly Sills6:53

I don't remember the year, but I was about seventeen or eighteen years old.

Beverly Sills6:58

Um

Beverly Sills6:59

And it's it's interesting now because I go to Philadelphia every year and they mount a new production for me. So things have improved.

Presenter7:04

Shit.

Presenter7:05

Well, we've got you that far towards your ambition, so let's have record number three.

Presenter7:10

What's there to be?

Beverly Sills7:11

Gallicoche, singing uno voce pocofa.

Speaker 27:22

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Presenter8:29

Momolita Gallicochi singing Unavochi Poca far from the Barber of Seville. So you played your first part in opera at the age of 17, Michael Erin Karmen. You did two seasons with a touring company.

Beverly Sills8:41

Yes, I went on tour with an operetta company again, this time doing um The Merry Widow, Countess Maritza and Rosemarie in repertory.

Beverly Sills8:51

And uh

Beverly Sills8:52

It was all marvellous experience for me, and it it taught me a great deal about uh how to uh how to behave on stage.

Presenter9:00

Yeah.

Beverly Sills9:00

It was a very good experience.

Presenter9:01

These are mostly one night stands with

Beverly Sills9:02

All one I'd stand.

Presenter9:04

with a long journey in between.

Beverly Sills9:05

Buses, yes, sometimes two, two hundred and fifty miles. Oh little. Yes, it was marvelous though.

Presenter9:10

I

Beverly Sills9:10

Enjoyed it.

Presenter9:11

When was it you first joined the New York City Opera Company?

Beverly Sills9:13

In nineteen fifty five, when I was twenty six years old, Rosalinda inflated mouse.

Presenter9:18

In status, this company ranks second to the Metropolitan.

Beverly Sills9:21

Yes.

Presenter9:22

You sang with the company for quite a few years, singing more or less whatever parts. Yes, exactly.

Beverly Sills9:26

Yes, exactly.

Presenter9:27

Give them to you.

Beverly Sills9:28

Yes. And uh then we moved into a new house, the New York State Theatre, which is very glamorous and in the middle of Lincoln Center. And we flank the Metropolitan on one side as the Philharmonicor flanks it on the other. And uh the New York City Opera decided to open the season with Julius Caesar, the Hendel Opera. And I had sung an awful lot of Hendel out of New York in my recitals and so forth, but never in New York. And the New York City Opera just gave me the part of Cleopatra.

Beverly Sills9:55

And it was ornamented for me, and it was presented, you know, fait accompli, this is what you perform. And I went out on stage.

Beverly Sills10:02

And uh I was really not aware that it was actually the first time in my career that I was able to walk to the center of the stage and sing some coloratora for the public. And by the end of the first aria I knew something very unusual was happening.

Beverly Sills10:16

Um, I didn't know how unusual until a week or two later because we were living in Boston then and I went I went out of New York and went home to my family.

Beverly Sills10:25

And it was only then that the national, international magazines, newspapers began to get in touch with me. You see, they were all there for the opening of the Metropolitan Opera.

Speaker 210:33

Hmm.

Beverly Sills10:33

which had opened with Samuel Barbers, Anthony and Cleopatra, which was a very beautiful opera, but unfortunately not well produced.

Beverly Sills10:41

And it was not successful. And so all the international people figured while they were there, they might as well walk across the plaza and see the handle of Julius Caesar. And I fell into it very, very happily. And so I consider the Cleopatra the great turning point in my career because from then on I went to

Beverly Sills11:00

Vienna and Scala and and Covent Garden and now I'll be going to the Metropolitan.

Presenter11:02

Yeah.

Presenter11:05

You're now the highest paid opera star in the world. Are you singing better now than you were in those days?

Presenter11:11

City center when you could be heard for a dollar fifty?

Beverly Sills11:16

Singing better, I don't know. I'm performing better. Not because I'm being paid more, but because I'm a more experienced singer. There is no substitute for experience. Uh also as you grow older and more mature, your approach to opera grows older and more mature. I have had always considered myself a singing actress, never just a singer. I get very bored with pretty voices. I think pretty singing is nice for twenty minutes and then what else is new? You know, I like something else to come along with it.

Speaker 111:40

Yeah.

Beverly Sills11:42

And uh the

Beverly Sills11:44

Any actress will tell you that the more experience she has on the stage, the better performer she becomes.

Presenter11:49

Let's have your fourth record. Watch that.

Beverly Sills11:51

Um the fourth record I chose immodestly, um the Aria dot empeste from uh Julius Caesar, because I felt while I'm on my desert island I may want to reminisce a little bit about the

Beverly Sills12:03

the night that it all happened. So I chose the Cleopatra.

Presenter12:07

And here it is happening.

Presenter13:09

Cleopatra's audio from the last act of Handel's Julius Caesar.

Presenter13:12

How long ago was it that you made that breakthrough?

Beverly Sills13:15

It was nineteen sixty-six.

Presenter13:17

A whole lot has happened in the last two years.

Beverly Sills13:19

I can hardly believe what's happened to me, really. It's been most exciting.

Presenter13:21

Yeah.

Beverly Sills13:23

Yeah.

Presenter13:23

I'm

Speaker 213:24

Yeah.

Presenter13:24

Uh

Beverly Sills13:24

I'm a late bloomer and I think it's ver it was very good that I bloomed late because I don't think I ever could have survived the pressures uh as a younger woman if I if this had happened to me when I was twenty eight.

Beverly Sills13:36

I I just don't think I could have taken it.

Presenter13:38

And international travel presents particular problems for you because your children need special care.

Beverly Sills13:43

Yes, that is a great problem. Uh I try to take them with me as often as possible, and normally I only come to Europe during their vacation so that they can come with me.

Speaker 213:53

Yeah.

Beverly Sills13:53

When I made my debut at Covent Garden it was over Christmas and New Year, and all of them came, and at La Scala it was during their Easter holiday, and all of them, including mamma and the maid, came over.

Speaker 214:04

And the

Beverly Sills14:04

And I go to um Buenos Aires, to the Teatro Colón, again in our summer time, which is, as you know, their winter, which is the height of their opera season. So that it's very rare that I come to Europe.

Presenter14:13

Yeah.

Beverly Sills14:15

Without my children.

Presenter14:17

Yeah.

Presenter14:18

I read that you showed the Italians that an American Prima Donald can be temperamental too. Is it true you tore up costumes? Yes, I cut it up.

Beverly Sills14:26

Well, I had said to the woman, You see, I was a replacement um my debut was really an accidental one. Madam Scotto became pregnant.

Beverly Sills14:34

In uh Italy they were doing La Sedio di Corinto, the Rossini piece.

Beverly Sills14:39

And Tom Shippers was conducting it, and we had almost no time to learn it.

Beverly Sills14:44

And he recommended that they get me to do it because he knew me as a colour tour soprano and a very fast learner, which I am. I can learn operas very quickly.

Beverly Sills14:53

And so they hired me, and when I arrived all the costumes, you see, have been made for Madame Scocto, who, as you know, is a lot shorter and built entirely different.

Beverly Sills15:01

From the way I am.

Speaker 215:02

Yeah.

Beverly Sills15:02

Also, she has very dark hair, and I have very light hair. So, when I arrived, the costume.

Beverly Sills15:07

It was being altered, but it was a bright gold, and I very nicely said it would be very sweet if this costume could be done in a sort of dull silver, because with my red hair and the gold costume we'd have a disaster. Si, signora, and she would disappear, this lovely little lady, and come back three days later for another fitting, and the costume was still gold, still looking rather dreadful. And I went to Benoit, who was in charge, and I said, Listen, you've got to tell this woman that the costume should be silver. Si, signora, which is all I heard for days and days and days. And finally, for the pre dress, they call that the ante generale, she came down to hold the costume up under the lights.

Beverly Sills15:40

Not on me, but it was just to get a little lighting effect to see if there was any of that shiny, shiny stuff that they don't like.

Beverly Sills15:47

And the

Beverly Sills15:48

I walked over to her and I said, Did I not tell you that the costume was supposed to be in silver? All this is my best Italian, which thank God I speak well.

Beverly Sills15:56

And she said, Si, signore, and I said, Good and she had this long black string around her neck with the scissor. So I took the scissor and I cut the costume up in four pieces and very carefully folded it and I said, Now you go make that costume silver, please.

Presenter16:09

Uh

Speaker 216:09

Uh

Beverly Sills16:09

The chorus applauded. I bet it went down wonderfully. Well, it did went over very well, but chorus. They like that.

Presenter16:11

I bet it went down wonderfully.

Presenter16:16

Yes. Well, you had a smash success at at the at the Scale in Naples and at Cotton Garden. You've only sung once now at Cotton Garden.

Beverly Sills16:22

Yes, but I think I'll be back.

Presenter16:23

Yeah.

Presenter16:25

You have a reputation for being without nerves before a performance. Is that true, or are you just good at disguising them?

Beverly Sills16:30

No, I really I'm too old now to be nervous. I've I've lived through my nervous period.

Beverly Sills16:36

And my theory is that if there was anybody else who could do it better than I was doing it, they'd be up there doing it. This is a highly competitive profession I'm in, and I'm not up there because people think I'm a sweet lady.

Beverly Sills16:48

I I sing well, I perform well, and I I give the public, I hope, an evening of pleasurable entertainment, and when the time comes that I don't do that, I won't be doing it.

Beverly Sills16:58

Um therefore I um I'm I'm past the stage of uh

Beverly Sills17:03

Of nerves. And also, I'm 43 now. I don't feel it's necessary for everybody to love me. I'd like if they did.

Speaker 217:10

Yeah.

Beverly Sills17:10

But it's not an integral part of my life. I don't love everybody, and I don't expect everybody to love what I do. I hope they have a good time. I when I sing I have a marvelous time. Are you superstitious at all? No, no.

Beverly Sills17:22

You're exactly.

Presenter17:25

No, no, I'm not.

Beverly Sills17:26

No, no, I

Presenter17:27

You like to learn all the roles that an opera that you're singing is

Beverly Sills17:30

Yes, generally when I sing an opera I know everybody else's part, um it because it's the only way I can make a characterization. How can I react to anything if I don't know what's coming?

Presenter17:40

Let's have record number 5.

Beverly Sills17:41

I chose uh Brigitte Nielsen singing The Lieberstoad.

Beverly Sills17:46

I chose Nielsen because Aisha's a great friend of mine.

Beverly Sills17:49

Um and most recently I was doing a manon and she came back to see me and gave me a great big hug, big bear hug, and then she said to me, But my darling, it's a French girte.

Speaker 218:02

Yeah.

Presenter19:01

Be bestowed from Tristan and his older son by Beerkitt Nielsen. Let's go straight on to your next record.

Beverly Sills19:08

I chose uh fascination.

Beverly Sills19:10

I had done with Andrei Preven at the piano because, well, I felt he's another American in London and this is my way of saying hello to him. I chose it because my husband courted me to this song.

Beverly Sills19:21

And it was a very strange courtship because my mother came along.

Beverly Sills19:25

And we were a menage à trois.

Beverly Sills19:27

Until the day we were married. I never found out if my mother distrusted me or my husband, but in any case she would accompany us on our dates. And at one point Peter and I had a a terrible argument and he turned to me and he said, You know, I think I'm going to marry your mother. I like her better.

Speaker 219:43

Yeah.

Presenter20:48

Andre Previn, Fascination.

Presenter20:51

Missiles, how efficient are you going to be at looking after yourself? We've dumped you on this desert island. Could you build somewhere to live?

Beverly Sills20:57

Probably not.

Beverly Sills21:00

I'm rather inefficient at building anything. I uh I don't I'd probably hide under a big leaf.

Beverly Sills21:06

and just get dripped down by the rain and all sorts of things. I don't think I'd fare very well.

Presenter21:10

Uh Would you live on? Uh

Beverly Sills21:10

Yeah.

Presenter21:10

Yeah.

Beverly Sills21:10

The land?

Presenter21:11

Uh

Beverly Sills21:11

Yeah.

Beverly Sills21:11

That I might be able to do because I am a great fisherwoman and is my my hobby and uh

Presenter21:14

Are you

Beverly Sills21:17

My one of my passions outside of music is fishing.

Presenter21:20

On this island, would you keep up appearances? Would you try to do your hair and and and mend your one outfit? Or would you

Presenter21:28

just wear leaves and and and sunshine.

Beverly Sills21:30

No, I think I'd still try to hold myself together.

Presenter21:35

Would you try to escape?

Beverly Sills21:37

Well, I think so. I doubt if I would just sit there. I'm I'm really not the complacent type. I would probably, um, with my hands try to put together some sort of

Beverly Sills21:47

raft or maybe float away on a big leaf.

Presenter21:47

That may be fine.

Beverly Sills21:49

But I doubt if I would just

Presenter21:51

Where are you gonna find all these big leagues?

Beverly Sills21:52

Oh, I don't know, but I'll keep looking. I doubt if I would sit there.

Presenter21:55

Let's have a record number seven.

Beverly Sills21:57

Well, I chose the prelude to the third act of Lohengun.

Presenter23:04

A prelude to Act Three of Wagner's Lohengrin, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Rudolf Kempe.

Presenter23:10

Now we've come already to your last record. What's that?

Beverly Sills23:12

What's that?

Beverly Sills23:13

That is the Ljuba Valage performance of the final scene of Salome.

Beverly Sills23:18

Valich was really the first singing actress I ever saw on stage.

Beverly Sills23:22

When Belich came out with this shock of red hair and this overly white skin and these very small feet and this just bordering on being a little too plump, but really not plump,

Beverly Sills23:34

She was the decadent Salome of all times. It was the she was like a little monster on that stage, half child and and half leper. I don't it I I it's indescribable. And later I met Madame Valich in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States, and she was a very sweet, lovely lady.

Beverly Sills23:49

And I I couldn't believe it was the same person. We talked about this, and she said, But, my dear, it wasn't the same person. And then I realized that for each role you really must take on that person as an outer skin.

Beverly Sills24:03

And she was a great influence on me.

Presenter24:05

Which part of her performance are we going to hear?

Beverly Sills24:07

Well, I think the final scene.

Presenter24:08

With the head of Jonas.

Beverly Sills24:09

Of course.

Speaker 224:11

Uh

Presenter25:11

Gilber Village as Richard Streis's Salome, the conductor.

Presenter25:15

Fritz Rainer.

Presenter25:17

If you would only take one of those eight disks, which would it be?

Beverly Sills25:20

It would be the salome.

Presenter25:22

Yeah.

Beverly Sills25:22

Uh

Presenter25:22

Yeah.

Presenter25:23

And one luxury to take to the island with you?

Beverly Sills25:26

Well, now you may not consider it a luxury, but my husband tells me every time he pays the monthly bill that it is a luxury, I would take the telephone. And it wouldn't even need to be plugged in, because my husband also tells me I never listen to what anybody else is saying anyhow, and just blindly talk on.

Presenter25:40

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Beverly Sills25:42

So I would have to have my phone, it would keep me company.

Presenter25:44

Right. Yes, I'm not sure whether we can plug it into the formalities about paying the bills, whether you can transfer the charges. I don't know.

Beverly Sills25:50

Yeah.

Presenter25:53

And one book apart from the Bible in Shakespeare.

Beverly Sills25:55

I would take gone with the wind so that I could have Rhett Butler on my deserted island.

Presenter26:01

You'd also have um scarlet.

Beverly Sills26:03

Oh, well, that's incidental. I wouldn't pay much attention to her at all.

Presenter26:07

And thank you, Beverly Sills, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.

Beverly Sills26:11

Thank you for having me.

Presenter26:12

Goodbye, everyone.

Presenter26:22

The guest in today's programme was Beverly Sills.

Presenter26:26

The interviewer was Roy Plumley and the producer Ronald Cook.

Presenter26:31

Next Monday at 12.25 the castaway will be Group Captain Peter Townsend.

Speaker 126:39

You've been listening to a download from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more downloads, please visit the Radio 4 website.