Beverly Sills: Beverly Sills, who has died of lung cancer in Manhattan, aged 78, was among the most acclaimed bel canto sopranos to emerge from the United States after Maria Callas.
Since retiring from the stage in 1980, she had run the company with which she was most associated, the New York City Opera, and raised millions of dollars as chair of the Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center. She also lent her amiable presence and often wicked sense of humour to tele-casts from the Center, which she often hosted.
Sills sang in many of the world's great houses, including Covent Garden and La Scala, Milan. But unlike most opera singers of her generation, she chose not to spend her early career in Europe, nurturing her talent for nearly 20 years in regional American companies before her breakthrough success in 1966 as Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare.
She sang a huge variety of roles - by composers from Rameau to Nono - but was best known for her trilogy of Donizetti operas, Anna Bolena, Maria Stuardaand Roberto Devereux, as well as the title role in Massenet's Manon, her recording of which won the Edison prize in 1971.
She was also one of the few American opera singers of her time to make regular appearances on chat shows, play comic sketches with Carol Burnett and Danny Kaye, and appear on The Muppets.
Born Belle Miriam Silverman in Brooklyn, Sills was known as Bubbles. She grew up in middle-class surroundings, and at a relatively early age had an almost freakish ability to navigate difficult arias, such as Caro Nomefrom Rigoletto. She performed on radio and the stage, but studied intensively over many years with Estelle Liebling, who had worked with Rosa Ponselle and written many of the standard vocal cadenzas used in bel canto operas.
Though Sills toured in variety and was billed as "the youngest diva in captivity", her official opera debut came in a secondary role in Carmenin 1947.
Some of her best singing was during those years, such as in the Douglas Moore opera, The Ballad of Baby Doe, which she memorably recorded in 1959 under such budgetary limits that retakes were not an option. She recalled being told, "Whatever happens, honey, just keep singing." Years of good work gave her the clout to demand the role of Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare.
Thereafter, Sills received many international invitations, but had a surprisingly stunted European career. Family commitments played an important part. Her marriage in 1955 to the wealthy newspaper editor Peter Greenough, from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, removed any financial impetus, and her two children were born with disabilities.
Nor did Sills' independent nature fit well in the "instant opera" machines of Europe, particularly since her position at the New York City Opera gave her a repertoire collaboration that not only resulted in her Donizetti trilogy but some of her best comic appearances, such as Queen Shemakha in Rimsky-Korsakov's Le Coq d'Or.
Live performances had rather less joy. Sills recalled in her 1987 autobiography Beverlythat backstage treatment was chilly during her 1970 Covent Garden debut in Lucia di Lammermoor, perhaps out of allegiance to a rather different Covent Garden Lucia, Joan Sutherland. She was asked what part her husband's money played in her career, suggesting unflattering parallels with Citizen Kane.
"I was definitely the outside superstar; I wasn't included in anything. London's artistic and operatic communities treated me the same way many of the city's newspapers did - as an interloper." Later, she turned down Covent Garden offers to import the New York City Opera's Roberto Devereux, even though the Elizabeth I role was considered her finest assumption.
In contrast to Sutherland, "I'd sacrifice any pure tones to make a dramatic point. I never really listened to my voice until last year [1986], when my albums were reissued on compact discs. My assessment is that I knew exactly what I was doing, and that I was often a risk-taking exciting singer. I think my most singular quality was the way I used text. And it didn't hurt to have a unique voice that people could identify very easily."
After retiring from the stage at the age of 51, Sills began a new life as an executive and leader of New York's performing arts community. Under her stewardship, the New York City Opera became the first in the US to use English supertitles. Then, in 1994, she became the first woman and first former artist to chair the Lincoln, leading it through eight boom years. She retired in 2002, saying she wanted "to smell the flowers a little bit".
Six months later, she was back as chair of the Met - "So I smelled the roses and developed an allergy," she joked. She bowed out in January 2005, saying, "I know that I have achieved what I set out to do."
Though she suffered intermittent bad health in recent years, her diagnosis with inoperable cancer was made only in May. Her husband died in 2006. She is survived by their two children and three stepchildren.
Beverly Sills (Belle Miriam Silverman), opera singer and administrator, born May 25 1929; died July 2 2007.