Today, the music world mourns the loss of American opera singer, arts administrator and public figure Beverly Sills, who succumbed to inoperable lung cancer on Monday night at the age of 78. Born Belle Miriam Silverman in Brooklyn, the soprano known as Bubbles was far more than one of America’s most admired classical-music performers: For a time, she was the public face of opera in this country. She was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1971, and her numerous appearances on the Tonight Show—not just as a guest, but as a substitute host for Johnny Carson—made her the most recognizable figure in opera since Enrico Caruso.

Adding to Sills’s legend was the pluck that saw her become the house diva at New York City Opera during the long years in which American singers not trained abroad were unwelcome at the Metropolitan Opera. At City Opera, she played a major role in the revival of bel canto works by Donizetti, and was closely associated with the title role in American composer Douglas Moore’s The Ballad of Baby Doe. Sills finally made her long-overdue Met debut in 1975, in Rossini’s The Siege of Corinth. It wouldn’t be the biggest role Sills would assume for the company—that was still some years away.

In 1980, Sills retired from the stage, and began the second great phase of her career. As an administrator, she became the general director of New York City Opera, ushering in the supertitles that made opera in foreign languages accessible to general audiences.

From 1994 to 2002, Sills was chairman of Lincoln Center. Following a six-month “retirement,” she returned as chairman of the Met, a position she gave up in 2005 to tend to the mounting needs of her family. Even then, Sills couldn’t avoid the spotlight. In 2006, baritone Nathan Gunn was named winner of the Met’s first annual Beverly Sills Artist Award. This year, the honor went to mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, a singer whose artistry, effervescence and charm pay the ultimate tribute to Sills.

Opera bloggers have been quick to pay their respects. Per classical blog star Alex Ross’s survey, you’ll find a moving tribute at My Favorite Intermissions, a long tally of operaphile salutes at Parterre Box, and a terrific collection of YouTube clips at The Standing Room.