From sign to sound (1/6): Renata Tebaldi, opera singer in Hollywood

From sign to sound, discover the new series of musical articles. Six exceptional performers are honored. What do they have in common? They give body to music and, in 2022, celebrate a birthday with round numbers.

A performer’s mission is certainly to realize a musical project planned by a composer. And what is his or her role? To be an indispensable intermediary in making the composer’s message comprehensible to everyone. In fact, unlike most other arts, reading a musical score is not easy and offers only a partial reflection of its reality. One or more people who can translate musical signs into a sound message are needed to bring them to life. And these signs can even come alive in different ways. Listen to different interpreters of the same work. In different places, atmospheres and situations. Each time, you’ll have a new experience. Thanks to the interpreter’s sensitivity and artistic point of view, music acquires a richness that rarely makes it identical to itself.

In this first article, we celebrate the ^100th birthday of Italian soprano Renata Tebaldi, born on February 1ᵉʳ, 1922, in Rossini’s native Pesaro. She is considered one of the most popular opera performers of all time. So popular, in fact, that her name appears on one of the stars of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the famous sidewalk on Los Angeles’ Hollywood Boulevard. Her contribution to the entertainment industry is honored there.

Her pure, moving voice, dubbed the “angel’s voice” by conductor Arturo Toscanini, lent splendor to the noblest characters in Italian opera. In 1953, she even lent her voice to Italian actress Sophia Loren for the film-opera Aïda, directed by Clemente Fracassi.

The Verdian and Verista repertoires are certainly her areas of predilection and excellence. Violetta, Aïda, Leonora, Giovanna d’Arco, Desdemona, as well as Tosca, Cio-Cio-San, Liù and Mimì. Roles that seem to have been written for her bewitching lyrico-spinto soprano timbre, somewhere between lyrical and dramatic. Renata Tebaldi gave voice to the dressmaker Mimì in Puccini’s La Bohème 109 times between 1945 and 1970, sublimating the Tuscan composer’s writing.

The young singer’s real career began in 1946, in Trieste. Performing the role of Desdemona in Verdi’sOtello, Renata Tebaldi attracted the attention of Arturo Toscanini. The conductor invited her to the gala reopening of Milan’s La Scala, rebuilt after the wartime bombardments, on May 11, 1946. She was thrust into the limelight, and all the major Italian theaters were clamoring for her.

On the international stage, Renata Tebaldi made her debut at London’s Covent Garden in 1950. Five years later, she reached her zenith on the stage of New York’s Metropolitan Opera as Desdemona, opposite the celebrated tenor Mario Del Monaco as Otello, who was to become her most frequent partner.

It was a complete success, so much so that in the U.S. she was affectionately nicknamed “Miss Sold Out”, due to the enormous audience turnout for the productions in which she appeared. Her talent was also recognized by Decca, who offered her an exclusive contract that would last until the end of her career.

Renata Tebaldi was once considered Maria Callas’ rival. But, as Roger Blanchard and Roland de Candé explain in their book Dieux et divas de l’opérait was a sterile dispute. Their voices, styles and even repertoires were very different. Unlike Callas, Tebaldi was not an actress or tragedienne, but a monument to beautiful singing. This rivalry was fueled, more than by the two divas, by the newspapers and their most ardent fans. Be that as it may, on September 16, 1968, the Greek diva went backstage at the Metropolitan to congratulate her Italian colleague after a performance ofAdriana Lecouvreur. This marked the definitive reconciliation between the two singers, who in reality had great admiration for each other.

Did you know? Renata Tebaldi is the first opera singer to have a dedicated iPad app: images, official and unreleased recordings, videos and press reviews from the era. The app was released in 2012.

A museum has also been dedicated to the soprano. You can visit it in the town of Busseto (Parma), Verdi’s birthplace.

Follow us on the Blog and discover the next article, on May 18, dedicated to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.