Renata Tebaldi
Renata Tebaldi was one of the dominant lyrico-spinto sopranos of the 1950s and 1960s, with a large, powerful voice that, despite a severely flawed top, was described by many of her admirers as one of the most beautiful of the 20th century. In many ways she and Maria Callas were defined by one another, although often far too simplistically, assuming that what one had, the other did not. (Rather like the cats versus dogs debates among pet lovers, in which all dogs are loving but dumb and all cats are bright but treacherous.) Those who backed Callas against Tebaldi denounced Tebaldi as a stodgy singer of the "this is about showing off my voice" school and lauded Callas as the genuine operatic artist who let the voice be subservient to the opera and to the drama; those who held Tebaldi to be the prima donna denounced Callas as overly erratic, with an unattractive voice that was on the edge of disaster. In fact, Tebaldi was not without a sense of the stage and of dramatic presentation, and for much of her career, in many ways Callas had the more reliable and versatile technique.
She studied at the Arrigo Boito Conservatory in Parma, and her stage debut was as Elena (Helen of Troy) in Boito's Mefistofele in 1944 at Rovigo. Her career took off with a concert performance rather than an operatic one. In 1946, Toscanini was performing the Verdi Te Deum to reopen the La Scala opera house, and he engaged her to perform the soprano solo. Whether he was referring to the way that she was physically placed considerably above the other soloists, exhorting her to sing like an angel, or in fact describing her voice as "la voce d' angelo" (the voice of an angel), a question which has aroused some controversy, she was soon identified by that phrase. Her stage debut was three months later as Eva in Wagner's Die Meistersinger. She made her London debut in 1950 as Desdemona in Verdi's Otello as part of a La Scala tour, the year of her United States debut in San Francisco as Tosca, and her Paris and Rio de Janiero debuts the next year. Her Met debut was in 1955, also as Desdemona, and thereafter it became something of a home base for her. While she had performed relative rarities earlier in her career, even including such unlikely composers as Handel (Giulio Cesare) and Rossini (Le siege de Corinthe) and obscure works by Spontini (La vestale and Fernando Cortez) and Refice' s Cecilia, she began to narrow her repertoire to mainstream works by Verdi, Puccini, and some of the verismo composers. In the early 1960s, a problematic technique and personal crisis (the death of her mother, to whom she had been especially close), led to a vocal crisis, and in 1963, she left the stage to rest and rework. While her vocal condition had not especially improved by the time of her return, her acting received far more praise than before. Her physical mobility was still limited by the after-effects of childhood polio, but she had become more expressive, and better able to use gestures and expressions to convey drama. In the early 1970s, she began her retirement, and her final stage performance was at La Scala in 1976.
Among her recordings, her Liu on the Leinsdorf Turandot with Nilsson and Bjoerling (RCA Living Stero 62687) shows her at her best; the tempo is not allowed to become lugubrious, and the role lies particularly low for a soprano, allowing the velvety richness of her middle and lower range to be displayed without the flatness or harshness that plagued her upper range throughout her career.
© Ann Feeney /TiVo
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Puccini: Il Trittico
Renata Tebaldi, Mario del Monaco, Robert Merrill, Fernando Corena, Orchestre du Mai Musical Florentin , Lamberto Gardelli
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 1962
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Puccini: Madama Butterfly
Renata Tebaldi, Giuseppe Campora, Coro dell'Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia, Alberto Erede
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 1951
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: La force du destin, extraits (Mono Version)
Renata Tebaldi, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1958
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Madame Butterfly
Renata Tebaldi, Carlo Bergonzi, Renata Tebaldi, Carlo Bergonzi & Cast
Opera - Released by Perfect Pitch on 7 Jan 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Puccini: Turandot
Renata Tebaldi, Birgit Nilsson, Jussi Bjoerling
Opera - Released by Past Classics on 24 Aug 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Opera Arias (Soprano): Tebaldi, Renata - Verdi, G. / Puccini, G. / Gounod, C.-F. / Mozart, W.A. / Boito, A. / Catalani, A. (Tebaldi) (1949-1953) (Giuseppe Verdi - Salvatore Cammarano - Antonio Ghislanzoni)
Opera - Released by IDIS on 1 Jan 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Renata Tebaldi - Voice of Gold
Classical - Released by Regis Records on 1 Jan 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Puccini · il trittico
Renata Tebaldi, Lamberto Gardelli, Orchestre du Mai Musical Florentin
Classical - Released by G.O.P. on 31 May 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Giacomo Puccini: Tosca
Classical - Released by ArnebAudio on 5 Oct 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Opera Arias (Soprano): Tebaldi, Renata - Boito, A. / Giordano, U. / Cilea, F. / Verdi, G. / Puccini, G. / Mascagni, P. / Verdi, G. (1950-1956) (Arrigo Boito - Luigi Illica - Umberto Giordano)
Opera - Released by IDIS on 1 Jan 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
An Evening At The Lyric Opera Of Chicago
Sir Georg Solti, Renata Tebaldi, Ettore Bastianini, Giulietta Simionato, Richard Tucker, Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on 1 Sep 1957
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: Le trouvère, extraits (Mono Version)
Renata Tebaldi, Mario del Monaco, Orchestre Du Grand Theatre De Geneve, Alberto Erede
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1960
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Puccini: Madame Butterfly, extraits (Mono Version)
Renata Tebaldi, Carlo Bergonzi, Orchestra dell'Accademia nazionale di Santa Cecilia di Roma, Tullio Serafin
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1961
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Catalani, A.: Wally [Opera] (1953) (Alfredo Catalani - Luigi Illica)
Full Operas - Released by IDIS on 1 Jan 2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Artistry Of Renata Tebaldi
Opera - Released by Everest Records on 18 Sep 1965
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Arrigo Boito: Mefistofele (Complete Recording)
Chorus And Orchestra Of The Accademia Di Santa Cecilia & Tullio Serafin, Floriana Cavalli, Piero De Palma, Renata Tebaldi, Mario del Monaco, Cesare Siepi
Opera - Released by Music Manager on 27 Mar 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Requiem in D Minor, K. 626 (Remastered 2020)
Classical - Released by JPK Musik on 16 Oct 2020
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Teatro Alla Scala: Concerto Di Apertura Dopo La Ricostruzione
Mafalda Favero, Renata Tebaldi, Jolanda Gardino, Giovanni Malipiero, Tancredi Pasero, Mariano Stabile
Classical - Released by NAR International on 1 Apr 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Singer Oortrait: The Young Renata Tebaldi
Opera - Released by The Art Of Singing on 3 Dec 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Puccini: Tosca, Extracts (Stereo Version)
Orchestra Dell'Academia Di Santa Cecilia Di Roma, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, Renata Tebaldi
Classical - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1962
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Voce d'Angelo
Classical - Released by Regis Records on 1 Nov 2002
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo