Beverly Sills rarely did Vivaldi. Here’s a motet in her last recital

THE SONGBIRD: Beverly Sills (1929 - 2007) was my first diva and the reason I became infatuated with coloratura sopranos and started collecting vocal music. Sills holds a special place in my musical life to this day so I'm happy to share this rare item that is not currently posted on YouTube, taken from the last solo vocal recital she gave in her career, in Garden Grove, California on May 13, 1980. Charles Wadsworth accompanies. Sills sang very few Vivaldi pieces in her career. I recall her telling a story in a radio interview during the intermission of her recital at Boston Conservatory in 1969 (I think) of meeting a nun who gave her some then unknown Vivaldi cantatas, which she programmed in her New York and Chicago recitals in 1970. (These can be found on YT on other channels.) After a long break, she included this Vivaldi motet into her last series of recitals in the 1979-80 season. THE MUSIC: Antonio Vivaldi was a prolific composer. His vast body of work included many vocal works: operas, cantatas, and motets. "O qui coeli terraeque serenitas," RV 631 is one of three surviving solo motets composed during Vivaldi’s stays in Rome during the carnival seasons of 1723 and 1724. The work has four movements: two arias sandwich a short recitative, followed by a final virtuoso Alleluia.