REVISED AND EXPANDED SECOND EDITION NOW SHIPPING!
6x9 Hardcover. 281 pages + Discography + 72 pages of photos + audio CD
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Biography by Carlamaria Casanova, revised and expanded second edition, with reflections by Connie Mandracchia DeCaro
The passing of the great soprano, Renata Tebaldi, has occasioned the release of an enhanced edition of her biography. Additional information about her life, letters, reminiscences by many of her colleagues, and honors she received are included. Also of interest to collectors are 16 pages of new photographs.
About the Book
Though Ms. Casanova has written an authorized biography, Renata Tebaldi is amply quoted in it being most frank about herself and her colleagues. Her essentially loving and tolerant nature provides a ready explanation for her being cast in the role of an “angel” by 1950s newspapers, where she was pitted against the “devil,” Maria Callas. Those who remember her soaring, sustained pianissimi may feel her status as one of heaven’s most beloved messengers was never challenged.
Though Callas gave stunning performances, surely one of the reasons Tebaldi reigned as the world’s greatest soprano for much of her thirty-year career was her ability to create characters. As she analyzes her performances many who saw her will remember the subtly shaded but authoritative way she embodied her roles, even Cio Cio San, despite her imposing height.
Along with a full accounting of the famous Tebaldi-Callas feud, this book contains warm and revealing recollections of other temperamental stars like Del Monaco and Di Stefano. A ravishingly beautiful woman, there was yet an inate dignity and warmth in Tebaldi that account for the fact that she remains, some twenty years after her retirement, the best-loved of all the divas, and perhaps the closest to the standards of the Golden Age in her unforced, sweetly tragic tone, not to mention her perfect record of service to high art, unerring taste and unfeigned humility. If this book is in homage, so be it; no amount of words or awards could reciprocate the blessings that Renata Tebaldi bestowed upon the world.
“A colorful essay… Revealing accounts of matters Ms. Tebaldi has seldom discussed in public.” – Opera Canada
Number two in Baskerville’s Great Voices Series, the volume contains a CD with choice recordings of Tebaldi. In addition, there are 72 pages of photographs and a discography.
About the Author
Born in Monza, Italy, Carlamaria Casanova has always been part of the world of opera. In the field of music she has published Renata Tebaldi: The voice of an Angel (four reprints, translated into French, English, and Russian); Gabriella Cohen, la ballerina, il personaggio; and Cesare Bardelli, il principe dei baritone. |
