Update:
It's official. Associated Press.
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Anthony Tommasini will report soon in nytimes.com -- and then in tomorrow's Times -- that Shirley Verrett, the veteran opera singer "who overcame racial prejudice to bring fearless power, scrupulous musicianship and keen dramatic instincts to opera stages throughout the world, has died" at the age of 79.
Today Opera Chic celebrates the birthday of Professor Shirley Verrett: tanti auguri di buon compleanno to the statuesque Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres & Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (how sad that the French have given her more recognition than her own country did, by the way). So, let's all start carving that big rock at Mount Rushmore and add her beautiful visage to that company of surly old d00ds, ok?
As Professor Verrettt's own University of Michigan page says, Verrett "has performed and recorded as soloist with conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Colin Davis, Carlo Maria Guilini, Bernard Haitink, Herbert von Karajan, Josef Krips, Rafael Kubelik, Erich Leinsdorf, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Eugene Ormandy, Seiji Ozawa, Georges Pretre, Thomas Schippers, Georg Solti, and Leopold Stokowski".
Opera Chic's not wearing her Yankee cap now, but she ideally tips her hat at that awesome list -- what a career, signora Shirley!