Metropolitan Opera Chair Sills Resigns

01/25/2005 7:41 PM, AP


Beverly Sills, the hometown diva who became a major fund-raiser for the Metropolitan Opera , resigned Tuesday as the organization's chairman, citing personal reasons.

"It's the right time to leave and concentrate on my family," Sills, 75, said in a statement. "I know that I have achieved what I set out to do."

Sills sang for international audiences for more than three decades before retiring from the stage in 1980 at age 51. She then launched a new career as an executive and leader of New York's performing arts community. In 1994 she became the first woman and the first former artist to chair the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

After leading Lincoln Center through eight boom years and launching a redevelopment project, she retired in 2002, only to emerge six months later to head the Metropolitan Opera.

Fund-raising was a crucial part of her job at the Met, and she succeeded thanks to "her winning combination of charm, humor and determination," Opera President William C. Morris said.

One of her most important campaigns was to save the Met's Saturday afternoon broadcasts, which reach about 11 million people in more than 40 countries. She said Tuesday she was proud she had raised enough money for the broadcasts to run "for the foreseeable future."

The Brooklyn-born Sills has been in poor health recently, suffering a fall that put her in a wheelchair.

Her resignation is effective immediately, Morris said.

Joseph Volpe, the opera company's general manager, called Sills' contribution "considerable."

"I know that the strength of her spirit and her unfailing sense of humor even when things get rough will help her through the present difficulties," he said in a statement.

In the past year, one of Sills' most important tasks was helping to choose a successor for Volpe, who will retire in August 2006.

She and the other members of a search committee chose Peter Gelb, president of the Sony Classical recording label, who will join the Met on Aug. 1 for a one-year transition.

The selection of Gelb, Sills said Tuesday, "gives me peace of mind in leaving."