(Curator: Christopher Reynolds)

Beverly Sills was one of the first singers I fell in love with. I was sitting in freshman music history at Juilliard when my teacher introduced us to an opera I had never heard of – “Roberto Devereux.” He showed us a video of a 1975 production with Sills in the title role at the Wolf Trap summer festival. I was electrified. I had never seen such phenomenal acting from a singer, coupled with a voice that shot through me like an arrow. Not that it was always pretty- her character at that point was driven to such a point of mad anguish that her voice took on a similar quality. Here we find something quite different. This is Sills from two years prior on a television broadcast singing one of my favorite songs, “All the things you are.” This is pure vocal beauty, combined with the most glorious B flat you will ever hear.