Word: tebaldi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Every opera fan knows how high Tosca bounced, when the next swan left and what Maria Callas thought of Renata Tebaldi; disasters, bons mots and bitchy remarks seem integral to the art. Ethan Mordden, who knows his way around backstage (Demented: The World of the Opera Diva; The Splendid Art of Opera), has gleefully amassed hundreds of such anecdotes, exchanges and choice bits of opera lore, along with some less celebrated stories. "Yet there is history here," he says, "for if many of the tales are silly, many others are telling...
...strictest and most scrupulous. She sang with complete fidelity to the composer and his idiom; yet the human essence of each heroine shone through her interpretation. Audiences felt that they were seeing Norma or Violetta. Hers was not a conventionally "beautiful" voice, like that of her great rival Renata Tebaldi. It could be volatile and reedy. Her wanderings impaired her health and her voice. She enjoyed only about ten years of international fame before serious vocal trouble began...