Chris’s Cache sends Renata Scotto a valentine ahead of her 89th birthday next week with rare in-house recordings of eight (!) mid-career performances spanning 1971-1977.
Happy 87th birthday soprano Renata Scotto.
Trove Thursday celebrates early St. Cecilia’s Day—November 22—with a 1976 performance of Licino Refice’s Cecilia starring Renata Scotto as the patron saint of music and musicians.
“Several prima donnas have sought to resurrect La Vestale, including Renata Scotto.”
Your doyenne’s origin myth must always be understood to begin with the bite of a radioactive soprano way back in 1976.
On this day in 1965 soprano Renata Scotto made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Cio-Cio-San.
“Trove Thursday”’s latest folie de grandeur is an overflowing three-part explosion of post-war divas in live performances of unexpected arias always in the “wrong language.”
Happy 84th birthday to the diva of divas, Renata Scotto!
Can it really be 40 (Four, oh!) years since La Cieca was born?
Tenor Michael Fabiano reportedly tore the place down tonight at WQXR’s Greene Space.
Some very clever casting indeed in this week’s “Dream Team” competition.
In a slight detour from the usual all-opera-all-the-time format of parterre box, the queer opera zine, issue #44 centers on Ben Letzler‘s superb appreciation of film and cabaret diva Zarah Leander.
The very first words in this issue are “Renata Scotto will return to the American operatic stage in the 2001 season!”
In Vintage Issue #32: How that opening night of Lohengrin might have gone; La Cieca on La Gran Scena…
Then and now: the “Dio ti giocondi, o sposo” duet from Otello.
Parterre’s tutelary diva shares espresso and cookies with parterre’s fave scribe Zachary Woolfe in preparation for the gala Met Legends event honoring her next Sunday.
Separated at birth: “Tu che di gel” goddess Renata Scotto and “Too much hair gel” oddness Johnny Weir. This is also holiday-themed breaking news because Johnny has now officially donned his gay apparel. [After Elton]
Chicago’s opera community has been abuzz about this production of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera ever since the 2010-11 Lyric Opera season was announced. A sumptuous production owned by San Francisco opera, major female stars, a solid male cast of experienced Verdians, and stage direction by the legendary Renata Scotto—what more could one ask?
I attend the opera intent on enjoying myself. If the music is not my favorite, there is always something to like, be it a colleague’s individual performance, the discovery of a newcomer, nifty stagecraft or costumes, observing the movement skills of the various singers, or in worst-case scenarios, observing the audience’s boredom, carefully notating the…
“As beautiful as her singing was, [Renata Scotto] never was much of an actress.” — Lotfi Mansouri: An Operatic Journey