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:
“Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Mind not the old man beseeching the young man;
Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties;
Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting
the hearses,
So strong you thump, O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“Bare night is best. Bare earth is best. Bare, bare,
Except for our own houses, huddled low
Beneath the arches and their spangled air,
Beneath the rhapsodies of fire and fire,
Where the voice that is in us makes a true response....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)