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Shirley Verrett, Opera Great - Opera star Shirley Verrett, one of the world's most distinguished mezzo-sopranos and known in her prime for a beguiling marriage of vocal richness and riveting characterizations on stage, died Friday. Verrett was 79 and lived in Ann Arbor, where she had taught at the University of Michigan since 1996. Her death was confirmed by her friend and colleague, tenor George Shirley. He said she died in her sleep after a long illness. "She was one of America's greatest opera singers," Shirley said. "She had a tremendous impact artistically and as a person, and in recent years she was a wonderful teacher and mentor for students. She was an extension of the Marian Anderson figure -- dignified, gracious and possessed of an outstanding voice and interpretive sense." Verrett, who came to prominence during the full flush of the civil rights movement, was also known, as critic Tim Page once put it, "for her membership in that pio...