Word: conductor
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...unknown to her; well-wishers, including many young people, throng her dressing room before as well as after a performance, and a relaxed Beverly makes small talk and long-distance phone calls right up until curtain time. "She has a completely unusual degree of security and professionalism," says Conductor Erich Leinsdorf...
Even Beverly has her breaking point, however. Once, at a rehearsal in Manhattan, a conductor reprimanded her: "Don't interrupt me when I'm speaking to somebody else." Beverly said: "I'll go you one better. I won't sing when you're conducting," and stomped offstage. During the preparations for her La Scala appearance, she climaxed an argument with the wardrobe mistress by snatching a pair of scissors and snipping a costume into pieces. The onlooking cast and chorus burst into applause, an Italian tribute to a flare of real temperament...
...Sills voice is a rich, supple flute: it is precise, a little light, and floats with ease in the stratosphere above high C. More than anything, it is agile. "The unique thing about Beverly's voice is that she can move it faster than anybody else alive," says Conductor Thomas Schippers. Soprano Leontyne Price is "flabbergasted at how many millions of things she can do with a written scale...
...study in contrasts: separate conjugations of greatness. Each has her passionate following. Ask a Sutherland admirer about Sills' voice and he might say, "Pretty, but thin." Ask a Sillsian about Sutherland and he might retort, "Beautiful, but boring." Still, all would probably agree with Conductor Thomas Schippers that "we haven't had the luxury of comparing two such singers for 50 years...
Sutherland began by thinking of herself as a dramatic soprano. She feared high notes until her husband, Conductor Richard Bonynge, tricked her into extending her upper voice by playing her music in higher keys. Originally bright and youthful-sounding, her voice darkened as she transformed herself into a coloratura. There is a suggestion of Callas' famous middle register in Sutherland's vocal center-a tone that sounds as if the singer were singing into the neck of a resonant bottle...