Renata Tebaldi,
1 February 1922 –
19 December 2004)was an
Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period. Among the most beloved opera singers,she has been said to have possessed one of the most beautiful voices of the
20th century which was focused primarily on the verismo roles of the lyric and dramatic repertoires.
Tebaldi was born
Renata Ersilia
Clotilde Tebaldi in
Pesaro on 1 February 1922.She was the daughter of a cellist, Teobaldo Tebaldi, and
Giuseppina Barbieri, a nurse.Her parents separated before her birth and Tebaldi grew up with her mother in the home of her maternal grandparents in
Langhirano.
Stricken with polio at the age of three,[9] Tebaldi became interested in music and was a member of the church choir in Langhirano.At the age of thirteen her mother sent her for piano lessons with Giuseppina
Passani in
Parma, who took the initiative that Tebaldi study voice with
Italo Brancucci, a singing teacher at the conservatory of Parma. She was admitted to the conservatory at the age of 17, taking lessons with Brancucci and
Ettore Campogalliani, and later transferred to
Liceo musicale
Rossini in Pesaro taking lessons with
Carmen Melis, and on her suggestion with Giuseppe Pais. She later studied with
Beverley Peck Johnson in
New York City.
Tebaldi made her stage debut as
Elena in
Boito's Mefistofele in
Rovigo in
1944,and performed in Parma in
La Bohème,
L'amico Fritz and
Andrea Chénier. She caused a stir when in 1946 she made her debut as
Desdemona alongside
Francesco Merli as
Otello in
Trieste.
Her major breakthrough came in 1946, when she auditioned for
Arturo Toscanini.
Toscanini was favorably impressed, calling her "voce d'angelo" (voice of an angel). Tebaldi made her
La Scala debut that year at the concert which marked the reopening of the theatre after
World War II. She sang the "
Prayer" ("
Dal tuo stellato soglio") from Rossini's biblical opera,
Mosè in Egitto, as well as the soprano part in
Verdi's Te Deum. She was given the operatic roles of Margherita and Elena in Mefistofele and
Elsa in Lohengrin in 1946.
The following year, she appeared in La Bohème and as Eva in
Die Meistersinger. Toscanini encouraged her to sing the role of
Aida and invited her to rehearse the role in his studio. She was of the opinion that the role of Aida was reserved for a dramatic soprano, but Toscanini convinced her and she made her role debut at La Scala in
1950 alongside
Mario del Monaco and
Fedora Barbieri in a performance conducted by
Antonino Votto. This was the greatest success in her still young career and was to launch her international career.
by the early 1950, Tebaldi was firmly entrenched at La Scala. But a new star had appeared on the scene –
Maria Callas. In 1950
Callas was taken on at La Scala as substitute Aida for an indisposed Tebaldi.
Matters came to a head in 1951 when both were with an Italian company touring
South America.
Perhaps unwisely, the two of them were engaged to appear in the same concert.
Afterwards Callas accused Tebaldi of breaking a no-encore agreement, when she delivered not one but two extra arias. The culmination of this rivalry came in an article in
Time magazine where Callas was quoted as saying that comparing herself to Tebaldi was like comparing champagne with Coca-Cola.However, witnesses to the interview stated that Callas only said "champagne with cognac" after which a bystander quipped, "No, with Coca-Cola", but the
Time reporter attributed the comment to Callas.
- published: 01 Feb 2016
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