Music: Sills Calling It Quits in 1980

But take heart, opera fans, she'll still be running the show

It sometimes seems that the highest —and hardest—step in a diva's career is the one into retirement. Too many sopranos linger after their fortes have turned into shrieks. Determined to avoid that fate, Soprano Beverly Sills announced last week that she would retire in the fall of 1980. These days, even dropping out seems to require the same three-year advance planning as everything else in opera. But Sills is not retiring to write a book (she has done that already) or go on the...