My introduction to Beverly Sills was on the Muppets home video. I remember Fozzie calling her a star of “country and western music”. And that is what, as a kid, I thought she was - a country and western star, with a great voice. Would Fozzie lie?! I think the video is still at my parents’ place. That video was played hundreds and hundreds of times. I remember Ms Sills performed Pigoletto with ‘you-know-who’.

Sadly, Ms Sill lost her battle with cancer. The irony was that it was lung cancer…

“NEW YORK — Beverly Sills, the Brooklyn-born opera diva who was a global icon of can-do American culture with her dazzling voice, bubbly personality and management moxie in the arts world, died Monday of cancer, her manager said. She was 78.”

link: Opera Star Beverly Sills Dies of Cancer

She was an American treasure - and a gift to the world.

Catherine Forsythe

[tags]beverly sills, opera, muppets, lung cancer[/tags]