Word: tebaldi
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...somehow, whatever the achievements of the oldtimers or the promise of the newcomers, opera fans invariably return to the bubbling controversy about just two singers-Tebaldi and "The Other One" (as Tebaldi partisans coldly dub Callas). Comparing them role by role, aria by aria is one of the more fascinating operatic pastimes. As far as The Other One is concerned, she considers all these comparisons idle. She and Tebaldi are simply not in the same league, Callas explained to a TIME reporter last week, because Tebaldi's repertory is so much smaller. Said Callas...
...repertoire, by God's will and nature's blessing, is complete. I have contributed to the history of music. I have taken music that has long been dead and buried and have brought it back to life again. If the time comes when my dear friend Renata Tebaldi will sing, among others, Norma or Lucia or Anna Bolena one night, then La Traviata or Gioconda or Medea the next-then, and only then, will we be rivals. Otherwise it is like comparing champagne with cognac. No-champagne with Coca-Cola...
Opera in the Throat. There is no denying the greater variety of Callas' fantastic repertory (although Tebaldi actually claims 36 operas in hers), or her immense superiority as an actress. But if Callas indeed has a champagne voice, it is also true that champagne can all too easily go sour-as many an operagoer can testify who has heard Callas on an off night. Tebaldi, perhaps because she attempts less, rarely sings an unpalatable note...
...Italy there is a saying, "The opera is in the throat"-meaning that a singer has it under perfect vocal control-and Tebaldi is believed by her fans to have her operas in her throat as has no other singer of her generation. She is a great piano singer, capable of purling out almost endless pianissimos of varying shades. Her Willow Song and Ave Maria from Otello are wonderfully pure yet warm-not crystals, but moonstones or pinkish opals. In Andrea Chenier, when the two lovers hail the dawn and go to the guillotine together, she is as radiant...
...splendor of Tebaldi's voice lies not so much in its range as in the evenness with which she negotiates that range (she claims from the first C in the bass to high C). She has the unusual gift of moving from one register to another with no perceptible shift in the quality of her singing, which is almost always unerringly accurate and clear, rarely marred by the edginess or brassy reverberations that afflict some singers. Her special glory is the spun-out, floating high note-which Tebaldi achieves, seemingly without effort, by paying out huge breaths in small...