A diva worthy of the name

The word “diva” has long since been appropriated by showbiz hucksters and campy fashionistas who like to place the grand cloak on the tiny shoulders of Beyonce Knowles, Celine Dion and whoever the replacements for Beyonce and Celine might be the week after next.

Still, if you’re comfortable with the word at all -- which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as a “distinguished female singer, a prima donna” -- you can apply it truthfully to Renata Tebaldi, who died Sunday at the age of 82.

Tebaldi was one of the great sopranos of the 20th century, an artist who melded distinct, haunting vocal luster to warm, sensitive, detailed and unfailingly dignified interpretations.

She was celebrated for her performances of the standard Italian repertory, for singing and recording leading roles in most of the best-known operas of Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini, as well as the most popular works by Pietro Mascagni (“Cavalleria Rusticana”), Arrigo Boito (“Mefistofele”) and Alfredo Catalani (“La Wally”). Indeed, the British critic J.B. Steane, in his invaluable study of vocal recordings, “The Grand Tradition,” placed Tebaldi precisely on what might be described as a musical 50-yard line.

“From first to last, she has been at the center, not only in reputation and repertory but in style and timbre,” he wrote. “As far as there can be such a thing, this is a voice without idiosyncrasies: standard in range, standard in power, without vibrato, shrillness or a detectable division of register.”

All of which sounds a little like praising with faint damnation -- and there was some of that over the years, mostly from devotees of Tebaldi’s supposed “rival,” Maria Callas. Yet the fact remains that Tebaldi’s voice -- impossibly smooth, florid and welling with poignancy -- touched people to their souls.

In the late 1950s, there were more than 100 Renata Tebaldi Music Clubs throughout Europe and America, and she retained a following long after her best years were behind her. When she came back to New York after an almost 20-year absence, more than 1,200 people showed up at the Metropolitan Opera’s gift shop to greet her and ask for autographs. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani declared Dec. 11, 1995, “Renata Tebaldi Day” in New York.

Revisiting the Met brought out the diva in her, a genuine Norma Desmond moment. “As soon as I walked in,” she told the New York Times, “I said to myself, ‘This is my theater!’ For many years I was ‘la regina’ here. The Queen.”

Tebaldi was born on Feb. 1, 1922, and grew up in Parma, Italy. She had originally planned to study piano, but sang with such richness and agility at her conservatory audition that an astonished administrator placed her into the vocal program. She made her debut in “Mefistofele” in 1944; two years later, the conductor Arturo Toscanini chose her to sing in the grand, postwar reopening of Milan’s La Scala, where she became a popular house soprano through 1954.

Her Met debut came on Jan. 31, 1955. She was an immediate favorite, and the company would eventually design two new productions especially for her. The first of these, “La Traviata” (1957), was successful but a revival of Francesco Cilea’s “Adriana Lecouvreur” -- which Tebaldi had demanded and which opened the 1968 season -- was roundly panned, more for its meretricious score and what was perceived as the Met’s kowtowing to a star player than for the soprano’s performance, which was generally judged exemplary.

Whatever rivalry there was with Callas was greatly exacerbated by partisan journalists and rabid fans, who were seemingly hungry for the highbrow equivalent of a catfight. In fact, the two artists were simply different. Tebaldi did not have Callas’ fierce, mercurial intensity, while Callas could rarely summon Tebaldi’s sheer, sonorous, tonal beauty. Astute operaphiles recognized that the world was lucky to have both of them.

Callas rose to the challenge, however. “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,” she told one journalist. “Otherwise, it is like comparing Champagne with Cognac. No -- Champagne with Coca-Cola.”

For her part, Tebaldi remained pretty much aloof from the fray, occasionally venturing to praise Callas as an “admired colleague.” And, certainly, she outlasted Callas, whose voice was mostly gone by the mid-1960s. Tebaldi continued to sing at the Met until 1973, when she bowed out in the same opera in which she had made her debut there -- Verdi’s “Otello.” There were a few concert performances thereafter, and then a comfortable retirement in Milan and on the shores of the Adriatic Sea in San Marino. She was said to be a kindly woman, a generous friend and attentive to her fans.

Tebaldi recorded prolifically, almost exclusively for the Decca/London label. Unfortunately, this legacy is marred somewhat by the presence of Mario del Monaco in many of the tenor roles. Del Monaco, despite possession of a fine and virile voice, seemed to know only two dynamic indications -- loud and louder -- and his crude, macho blustering is wildly aggravating in recordings such as “Il Trovatore” and “Mefistofele.” Fortunately, there are a number of recital discs available, and they present the unadorned Tebaldi -- a lovely, cream-toned singer of rare elegance, who will be much missed and long remembered.