Voice
Sills's voice has been described at the same time "rich, supple", "silvery", "precise, a little light", "multicolored", "robust and enveloping", with "a cutting edge that can slice through the largest orchestra and chorus," soaring easily above high C. Her technique and musicianship are very praised. Conductor Thomas Schippers said in a 1971 interview with Time that she had "the fastest voice alive." The New York Times writes that "she could dispatch coloratura roulades and embellishments, capped with radiant high D's and E-flats, with seemingly effortless agility. She sang with scrupulous musicianship, rhythmic incisiveness and a vivid sense of text." Soprano Leontyne Price was "flabbergasted at how many millions of things she can do with a written scale." Her vocal range, in performance, extended from F3 to F6, and she said she could sometimes hit a G6 in warm up.
Read more about this topic: Beverly Sills
Famous quotes containing the word voice:
“We are little airy creatures,
All of different voice and features:
One of us in glass is set,
One of us you’ll find in jet,
T’other you may see in tin,
And the fourth a box within;
If the fifth you should pursue,
It can never fly from you.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“Cotton Mather died when I was a boy. The books
He read, all day, all night and all the nights,
Had got him nowhere. There was always the doubt,
That made him preach the louder, long for a church
In which his voice would roll its cadences,
After the sermon, to quiet that mouse in the wall.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps.”
—Bible: New Testament St. John the Divine, in Revelation, 14:2.