Renata Tebaldi

Desdemona in Verdi's Otello was a career role for soprano Renata Tebaldi, from her first operatic performance outside of Italy to her final appearance on the opera stage. Between those landmarks she performed the role nearly 100 times all over the world and made studio audio recordings that became reference recordings for the role. This 1962 production with the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Giuseppe Patane was planned as a media event from the outset and blessedly captures a consummate artist in a signature role at the peak of her gifts.

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.

This Italian film version of Verdi's opera stars Sophia Loren on the screen, with Renata Tebaldi providing the vocals.

An Italian adaptation of the Richard Wagner opera Lohengrin, where a woman prays for a saviour, and receives it in the form of the title character, a man who will marry her and stay by her if she never asks him his name.

Verdi's opera performed in San Carlo 1958.

From the Politeama Theater in Catanzaro, a concert dedicated to Renata Tebaldi. The Calabria Philharmonic Orchestra, tenor Dario Di Vietri, and soprano Daria Masiero, conducted by Maestro Filippo Arlia, perform works by Puccini, Mascagni, Verdi, and Donizetti.

Renowned tenor Mario Del Monaco sings the lead in this production of Umberto Giordano's opera based on the life of French poet Andrea Chénier. With his unique vocal technique, Del Monaco brings a vibrant power to the title role, matched by complex and charismatic performances from Antonietta Stella as Chénier's beloved Maddalena and Giuseppe Taddei as the tragic Gérard in this sweeping tale set against the backdrop of the French Revolution.

Renowned Italian soprano Renata Tebaldi and Canadian baritone Louis Quilico perform the finale of the second act from "Tosca" in this rare television event, which originally aired in March 1965. Tebaldi also sings Rossini's song cycle "La Regata Veneziana" while Quilico takes over on the finale of Puccini's "Il Tabarro" and Tosti's "L'ultima Canzone." Ernesto Barbini conducts the CBC Festival Orchestra.