Renata Tebaldi

Adriaan Fuchs

“I cry when I hear my records… Now I understand what happened during my performances. I feel the same thing. Not because I know I am Renata Tebaldi, but because I can be objective.”

– Renata Tebaldi, soprano

Great Interpreters: Renata Tebaldi
Broadcast on Fine Music Radio on 27 September 2013.

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Renata Tebaldi was a singer of overwhelming expressivity and matchless vocal allure. Hers was arguably one of the most sumptuously beautiful lirico-spinto soprano voices of the 20th century. As Manuella Hoelterhoff recalls in her book Cinderella and Company: Backstage with Cecilia Bartoli, Tebaldi was a singer “who built empires out of sound,” a soprano so spellbinding that she transformed the ordinary notes available to everybody into the stuff of memory.”

In this podcast, I take a closer look at the life and career of Renata Tebaldi, the “voice of an angel”.

Podcast Track List

1) “Pace, pace mio Dio” from La forza del destino (Verdi)
Renata Tebaldi (Leonora)
Conductor: Donald Voorhees
Recorded: “live” on January 23, 1956.

2) “Porgi, amor” from Le nozze di Figaro (Mozart)
Renata Tebaldi (Countess)
Conductor: Carlo Maria Giulini
Orchestra: Italian Radio Symphony Orchestra Turin
Recorded: 26 November 1951 at the Turin Auditorium.

3) “Piangea cantando… Ave Maria” from Otello (Verdi)
Renata Tebaldi (Desdemona)
Ana Raquel Satre (Emilia)
Conductor: Herbert von Karajan
Orchestra: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Recorded: 1961

4) Extract from “Libera Me” from Requiem (Verdi)
Renata Tebaldi (Soprano)
Conductor: Arturo Toscanini
Orchestra: Orchestra and Chrous of La Scala, Milan.
Recorded: “live” on 26 June 1950 at La Scala, Milan.

5) “O patria mia” from Aida (Verdi)
Renata Tebaldi (Aida)
Recorded: 9 May 1950
Venue: La Scala, Milan.

6)“Io son l’umiIle ancella” from Adriana Lecouvreur (Cilèa)
Renata Tebaldi (Adriana Lecouvreur)
Conductor: Gaetano Merola
Orchestra: San Francisco Opera Association Orchestra.
Recorded: “live” in 1950.

7) “La mamma morta” from Andrea Chénier (Giordano)
Renata Tebaldi (Maddalena de Coigny)
Conductor: Gianandrea Gavazzeni
Orchestra: Orchestra of the Santa Cecilia Academy, Rome.
Recorded: 1957

8) “Con onor muore… Tu, tu, tu piccolo iddio” from Madama Butterfly (Puccini)
Renata Tebaldi (Cio-Cio-San)
Conductor: Tullio Serafin
Orchestra: Orchestra of the Santa Cecilia Academy, Rome.
Recorded: 1958

9) Extract from Act III of Tosca (Puccini)
Renata Tebaldi (Floria Tosca)
Richard Tucker (Mario Cavaradossi)
Conductor: Dimitri Mitropoulos
Orchestra: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
Recorded: “live” in 1956 at the Metropolitan Opera, New York.

10) Extract from Suor Angelica (Puccini)
Renata Tebaldi (Sister Angelica)
Conductor: Lamberto Gardelli
Orchestra: Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Recorded: 1962

11) “Tu, che le vanitá” from Don Carlo (Verdi)
Renata Tebaldi (Elisabetta)
Conductor: Oliviero de Fabritiis
Orchestra: New Philharmonia Orchestra
Recorded: 1964

12) “Suicidio!” from La Gioconda (Ponchielli)
Renata Tebaldi (Gioconda)
Conductor: Francesco Molinari-Pradelli
Orchestra: Orchestra of the Santa Cecilia Academy, Rome.
Recorded: 1964

13) “Vissi d’arte” from Tosca (Puccini)
Renata Tebaldi (Floria Tosca)
Conductor: Francesco Molinari-Pradelli
Orchestra: Orchestra of the Santa Cecilia Academy, Rome.
Recorded: 1959