I was always the first person in the theater all the time. If it was an eight-o’clock curtain, I was here at five-thirty, and it wasn’t that I needed to vocalize, because I was all warmed up. I couldn’t wait for it to begin. Beverly Sills Read Quote
At the beginning, I thought, ‘Oh, I can’t criticize a singer who’s doing a role that I adored… even a role I didn’t do.’ And then I thought, ‘The heck with that! Thirty years of experience… ask the girl who did it!’ And I feel that if they’re not willing to take what I have to say, that’s fine! But I’m going to say it. Beverly Sills Read Quote
You can’t imitate; all our faces are constructed differently… and the vocal cords; otherwise, we’d all sound alike. I don’t think anybody should ever teach by imitating. Beverly Sills Read Quote
There is a growing strength in women but it’s in the forehead, not the forearm. Beverly Sills Read Quote
My voice had a long, nonstop career. It deserves to be put to bed with quiet and dignity, not yanked out every once in a while to see if it can still do what it used to do. It can’t. Beverly Sills Read Quote
My parents never told me about Papa’s lung cancer or the desperate nature of the operations he was about to undergo, which were a last-ditch effort to contain the spread of his cancer. Beverly Sills Read Quote
This joyfulness that I felt when I sang, and this need to communicate with people, these are my two strongest points. I’ve always been a people person. I love people; I like to be with people, and when I got on stage, I was home free. Beverly Sills Read Quote
I love Massenet – ‘Manon’ had been a wonderful role for me – and the music he wrote for ‘Thais’ is quite enjoyable and not terribly demanding in a vocal sense. Beverly Sills Read Quote
I never breathe through the nose, not when I’m singing. In the opera, you don’t have so much time. That’s fine at the beginning of an opera or after somebody else has been doing an aria, and you want to get a good fresh start. Beverly Sills Read Quote
