Renata Tebaldi

When I bought all those DVD’s from House of Opera, one of them was a Berlin Opera production of Verdi’s Otello with Renata Tebaldi as Desdemona.

She was an Italian lyric soprano who could bring steel into her voice when the occasion required. Her legato was exquisite, and she understood the music she was singing completely. She just was not the scenery chewing type. As a person she was clearly very inward. Renata Tebaldi’s was an inward passion. There is dignity in her body, in her voice, in the profundity of her phrasing, in her very soul. She will not come out and smack you with her emotions, but if you open yourself to her singing and listen for the musical depth that is in her, there is no one greater.