DIVA SILLS TELLS OF HER RISE TO TOP

America in the ‘30s and ‘40s provided few opportunities for aspiring opera singers, one of America’s best-known divas recalled Monday before an audience of about 1,000 people.

“There was no place for a young opera singer then--no San Diego, New Orleans or Houston operas,” Sills lamented. “I sang in private key clubs. I sang the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ at ladies clubs’ luncheons for $5.”

She also ventured to America’s heartland. In one instance, she appeared at one high school just after the outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease. The school paper, she said, inadvertently switched captions, placing the announcement of her recital under the picture of a dead cow while running under her picture the caption: “Stinking Smut Hits Nebraska.”

That story elicited a round of laughter from an appreciative audience at the Edwards Cinema in Newport Beach that heard Sills talk about her life and rise to fame. Sills’ appearance was the first of four Town Hall lectures sponsored by the Assistance leagues of Laguna Beach and Newport Beach.

A slightly hoarse Sills--she apologized for “a touch of laryngitis”--began with her early days in Brooklyn up through her tenure as general director of the New York City Opera, which she took over in 1979. The company has just completed a 12-day run at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

Sills’ lecture was part of her long-term effort, she said, “to take opera out of the hothouse and show that opera singers are like anybody else making a living.

“But we use our vocal chords instead of our hands--or our brains,” she added wryly.

Sills was born into a strict European family in which her two older brothers were favored, she said. Her father’s attitude toward the sole girl in the family was, “Let’s hope she’s not too ugly to get married by the time she’s in her late teens.”

Sills began singing by imitating the Galli-Curci recordings her mother played every morning “even before she started breakfast.

“I learned 22 arias in bad Italian by the age of 6.”

She parlayed that training, plus a fluency in French (her mother had wanted her to be multilingual) into radio appearances on children’s amateur shows, soap operas and “the first singing radio commercial” for Rinso White soap.

As her career began to develop, however, her father intervened, considering women who appeared in public performances to be loose and degraded.

But Sills’ mother managed to prevail:

“ ‘You take care of the boys; I’ll do the girl,’ ” her mother told her father.

Before being accepted into the New York City Opera in 1955 at age 26, Sills said she auditioned eight times but was told that she had a nice voice “but no personality.

“So I let my hair down, put on black lace stockings and wore a low-cut dress.” Returning for a ninth audition, she said, “I was hired even before I had sung a note.”

Still, some recognition came late: Sills made her Metropolitan Opera debut at the age of 46. She had vowed never to sing there as long as Sir Rudolph Bing was general manager because Bing was unsupportive of American singers, she said.

The day after Bing resigned, Sills signed the contract to appear at the Met.

“It was an exciting evening,” she said, “but it came too late for it to have the meaning it should have.”

Sills encouraged her Orange County audience to be more supportive of young American singers.

“If you see an unknown name singing in an opera, go see it: You may be discovering your own superstar.”

She predicted that in five years American singers will dominate the opera world.

Above all, Sills said, taking the opportunity to score recent press coverage of the company’s local appearances, don’t be influenced by critics.

“We received a local thrashing in the press for stupid reasons. Of course, nobody gets well-known in critical circles by saying nice things,” Sills said, drawing applause.

“I resent being told by someone who has seen fewer operas than I have sung what’s good and what isn’t.”

“But give it a try for yourself when we come back,” she told the audience, saying that negotiations are under way to bring the company back to the Performing Arts Center in 1989.

“You have your own taste. Form your own opinions.”