Renata Scotto

Renata Scotto
Scotto in Milan in 1967
Born	(1934-02-24)24 February 1934 Savona, Kingdom of Italy
Died	16 August 2023(2023-08-16) (aged 89) Savona, Italy
Occupations	Operatic soprano Opera director Academic teacher
Organizations	La Scala Metropolitan Opera

Renata Scotto (24 February 1934 – 16 August 2023) was an Italian soprano, opera director and academic teacher.

Recognised for her sense of style, her musicality, and as a remarkable singer-actress, Scotto is considered one of the preeminent opera singers of her generation. For more than 40 years, she performed in some 45 roles, including the title roles of Verdi's La traviata, Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, and Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur. She appeared in the first telecast from the Metropolitan Opera in 1977, as Mimi in Puccini's La bohème, alongside Luciano Pavarotti.

Life and career

Scotto was born in Savona on 24 February 1934, a fishing port. Her father was a police officer and her mother a seamstress. During World War II, her mother took her and her sister to the near-by mountains, taking sewing jobs from the fascists, the Nazis and the Americans. After the war, she experienced her first opera in her hometown, Verdi's Rigoletto with Tito Gobbi in the title role, and decided then, at age twelve, that she would become an opera singer.

Scotto made her operatic debut in her hometown on Christmas Eve of 1952 at the age of 18 in front of a sold-out house in the title role of Verdi's La traviata.The next day, she made her 'official' opera debut at the Teatro Nuovo in Milan in the same role. Shortly after, she performed in Savona the title role of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, and was paid twenty-five thousand lire. Both roles would become closely associated with her name.

In 1953, Scotto auditioned at La Scala for the role of Walter in Catalani's La Wally, with Renata Tebaldi and Mario del Monaco in lead roles. After her audition, one of the judges, the conductor Victor de Sabata, was heard saying, "Forget about the rest." La Wally opened on 7 December 1953, and Scotto was called back for fifteen curtain calls while Tebaldi and Del Monaco each received seven.

Scotto's major breakthrough came in 1957 when she performed at the Edinburgh Festival in a La Scala production of Bellini's La Sonnambula; Maria Callas was cast as Amina. It was so successful that the company added an unscheduled fifth performance. Callas, who was under contract for four performances, declined to perform in the added performance but allowed the La Scala management, who had announced her for the fifth performance without her consent, to explain her departure from the festival as being due to illness. Scotto, stepping in as Amina, performed on 3 September 1957, and became an international opera star at age 23. In 1961, she performed Amina again at La Fenice with tenor Alfredo Kraus with whom she shared the same teacher, Mercedes Llopart, and a long professional association to come.

During the 1960s she became one of the leading singers in the belcanto revival initiated by Callas during the 1950s. She sang Bellini's Zaira, La straniera, and Giulietta in s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Donizetti's Maria di Rohan, in Meyerbeer's Robert le diable and other repertoire rarities. In 1964 she performed with La Scala at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the first opera company tour to the Soviet Union during the Cold War years.

Her American debut was as Mimì in Puccini's La bohème at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1960. On 13 October 1965, Scotto made her Metropolitan Opera (Met) debut as Madama Butterfly. She went on to sing more than 300 performances in 26 roles there through 1987 and settled to live with her family in nearby Westchester County. Her last role in 1987 was again Madama Butterfly.

Scotto opened the series of Live from the Met telecasts in 1977 with La bohème, alongside Luciano Pavarotti. She starred in the telecasts of Puccini's Manon Lescaut and Il trittico, Verdi's Luisa Miller and Don Carlo, Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini, and as Desdemona in Verdi's Otello, alongside with Jon Vickers, among others.

Scotto sang regularly at the San Francisco Opera; Chicago Lyric Opera; Dallas Opera; Royal Opera, London; Liceo, Barcelona; La Fenice, Venice; and Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires. In addition she appeared in Madrid, Genoa, Florence, Bologna, Trieste, Palermo, Roma, Berlin, Paris, Miami, Tokyo, Pittsburgh, and Osaka among others.

For more than 40 years, Scotto performed in operas written by 18 composers and her repertoire included some forty-five roles. She is best known for her performances as La traviata, Gilda in Rigoletto, Madama Butterfly, Mimì (and occasionally Musetta) in La bohème, Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Adina in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, Liù in Puccini's Turandot, Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, all three leading soprano roles in Il trittico, Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, and Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini.

In a 1981 performance of Bellini's Norma at the Met, some in the audience compared her to Callas, and commented during the performance; some had to be forced to leave the house. Critic Peter G. Davis noted in New York magazine: "Time and again, Scotto reminded us of her sovereign musicality, her instinctive feeling for the rhythmic life of the notes, her ability to mold finely sculpted phrases, and her sensitivity for coloring the words into emotions that instantly define a dramatic situation."

Scotto had success at the Met in Meyerbeer's Le prophète, Ponchielli's La gioconda, and as Vitellia in Mozart's La clemenza di Tito. Moving into the heavier Verdi repertoire in the 1970s, she appeared as Elisabetta in Don Carlo, Luisa Miller, Lady Macbeth, Leonora in Il trovatore, and in the Requiem, all conducted by James Levine.

She is remembered as a singing actress; Plácido Domingo said in a 1978 interview: "There is an emphasis, a feeling she puts behind every word she interprets."

In the late part of her career, Scotto took on the roles of Giordano's Fedora (Barcelona, 1988), Charlotte in Massenet's Werther, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss (Charleston Spoleto Festival, 1995 and Catania), Kundry in Wagner's Parsifal (Schwerin, 995), Elle in Poulenc's La voix humaine (Florence, 1993; Amsterdam and Barcelona, 1996; Torino, 1999), Madame Flora in Samuel Barber's The Medium (Torino, 1999) and Klytemnestra in Elektra by Richard Strauss (Baltimore, 2000 and Sevilla, 2002). Later concert appearances included Berlioz's Les nuits d'été, lieder by Mahler and Richard Strauss, as well as Schoenberg's Erwartung with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra and RAI Orchestra of Torino.

Stage director

Renata Scotto, 2009

After retiring from the stage in 2002, Scotto turned successfully to directing opera as well; her director credits include: Madama Butterfly (Metropolitan Opera, Arena di Verona, Florida Grand Opera, Palm Beach Opera); Bellini's Il pirata (Festival Belliniano, Catania, 1993) and La sonnambula (Catania, 1994); an Emmy Award-winning telecast of La traviata (New York City Opera, 1995); Norma (Finnish National Opera); Adriana Lecouvreur (Santiago, 2002); Lucia di Lammermoor (Music Hall of Thessaloniki, 2004); La Wally (Dallas, Bern); La bohème (Lyric Opera of Chicago, 2007 and Palm Beach Opera, 2009); Turandot (Athens, 2009); La sonnambula (Miami and Michigan Opera Theatre, 2008), and Un ballo in maschera (Lyric Opera of Chicago, 2010).

In February 2008, Scotto hosted an artists' roundtable during the intermission of the Met broadcast of Adriana Lecouvreur and in 2009 she returned for another round-table with Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Florez.

Scotto also taught voice in Italy and America, along with academic posts at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and the Juilliard School in New York City.

Personal life

Scotto married violinist Lorenzo Anselmi in 1960. The couple had a daughter and a son.

Scotto died in her home town of Savona on 16 August 2023, at the age of 89.

Honors

• 2007 – Recipient of the Opera News Award by the Metropolitan Opera Guild.
• 2009 – Opera Tampa's Anton Coppola Award for Excellence in the Arts.
• 2009 – Honorary doctorate by The Juilliard School.
• She won two Emmys, for the telecast of La Gioconda and her direction of La traviata from NYCO.
• Award Franco Albiatti della Critica Italiana.
• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung award for her interpretation of the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier.

Recordings

• Bellini: Norma (Troyanos, Giacomini, Plishka; Levine, 1979) CBS Masterworks
• Cherubini: Médée [in Italian] (Callas, Pirazzini, Picchi; Serafin, 1957) Ricordi/Mercury
• Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur (Obratzsova, Domingo, Milnes; Levine, 1977) CBS
• Donizetti: Anna Bolena (Marsee, Ramey; Rudel, 1975) [live] Opera Depot
• Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor (di Stefano, Bastianini; Sanzogno, 1959) Deutsche Grammophon
• Giordano: Andrea Chénier (Domingo, Milnes; Levine, 1976) RCA Red Seal
• Leoncavallo: Pagliacci (Carreras, Nurmela, Allen; Muti, 1978) EMI
• Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana (Domingo, Elvíra; Levine, 1978) RCA Red Seal
• Meyerbeer: Le prophète (Horne, McCracken, Hines; Lewis, 1976) CBS
• Pergolesi: La serva padrona (Bruscantini; Fasano, p. 1960) Ricordi/Mercury
• Puccini: La bohème (Meneguzzer, Poggi, Gobbi; Votto, 1961) Deutsche Grammophon
• Puccini: La bohème (Neblett, Kraus, Milnes, Manuguerra, Plishka; Levine, 1979) EMI
• Puccini: Edgar (Killebrew, Bergonzi, Sardinero; Queler, 1977) [live] CBS
• Puccini: Madama Butterfly (Bergonzi; Barbirolli, 1966) EMI
• Puccini: Madama Butterfly (Knight, Domingo, Wixell; Maazel, 1978) CBS
• Puccini: Suor Angelica (Cotrubaș, Horne; Maazel, 1976) CBS
• Puccini: Il tabarro (Knight, Domingo, Gobbi; Maazel, 1977) CBS
• Puccini: Tosca (Domingo, Bruson; Levine, 1980) EMI
• Puccini: Turandot (Nilsson, Corelli; Molinari-Pradelli, 1965) EMI
• Puccini: Le villi (Domingo, Nucci, Gobbi; Maazel, 1979) CBS
• Refice: Cecilia [abridged] (Theyard; Campori, 1976) [live] VAI
• Respighi: Il tramonto (Fulton, 1982) Vox
• Verdi: Arias (Gavazzeni, 1975) CBS
• Verdi: Arias (Fulton, 1983) Hungaroton
• Verdi: Complete Songs (Washington, Scalera, 1989) [live] Nuovo Era
• Verdi: Nabucco (Luchetti, Manuguerra, Ghiaurov; Muti, 1977–78) EMI
• Verdi: Otello (Domingo, Milnes; Levine, 1978) RCA Red Seal
• Verdi: Requiem (Baltsa, Luchetti, Nesterenko; Muti, 1978) EMI
• Verdi: Rigoletto (Kraus, Bastianini; Gavazzeni, 1960) Deutsche Grammophon
• Verdi: Rigoletto (Cossotto, Bergonzi, Fischer-Dieskau; Kubelík, 1964) Deutsche Grammophon
• Verdi: La traviata (G.Raimondi, Bastianini; Votto, 1962) Deutsche Grammophon
• Verdi: La traviata (Kraus, Bruson; Muti, 1980) EMI
• Wolf-Ferrari: Il segreto di Susanna (Bruson; Pritchard, 1980) CBS
• "Christmas with Renata Scotto at St Patrick's Cathedral" (Grady; Anselmi, 1981) RCA/VAI
• "French Arias" (Rosekrans, 1987) Hungaroton
• "The French Album--II (Rosekrans, 1988) Hungaroton
• "In Duet" (Freni; Anselmi/Magiera, 1978) Decca
• "Italian Opera Arias" (Gavazzeni, 1974) CBS
• "Live in Paris" (I.Davis, 1983) Etcetera [live]
• "Romantic Opera Duets" (Domingo; Adler, 1978) CBS
• "Serenata" (Atkins, c.1977) CBS

Videos

• Massenet: Werther (Kraus, Sardinero; Guingal, De Tomasi, 1987) [live]
• Puccini: La bohème [as Mimì] (Niska, Pavarotti, Wixell, Plishka, Tajo; Levine, Melano, 1977) [live]
• Puccini: La bohème [as Musetta] (Stratas, Carreras, Stilwell, Morris; Levine, Zeffirelli, 1982) [live]
• Puccini: Manon Lescaut (Domingo, Elvíra, Capecchi; Levine, Menotti, 1980) [live]
• Puccini: Il trittico (Norden, Taillon, Moldoveanu, Creech, MacNeil, Bacquier; Levine, Melano, 1981) [live]
• Verdi: Don Carlos [in Italian] (Troyanos, Moldoveanu, Milnes, Plishka, Hines; Levine, Dexter, 1980) [live]
• Verdi: Luisa Miller (Kraft, Domingo, Milnes, Giaiotti, Morris; Levine, Merrill, 1979) [live]
• Verdi: Otello (Vickers, MacNeil; Levine, Zeffirelli, 1978) [live]
• Zandonai: Francesca da Rimini (Rom, Domingo, MacNeil, Levine, Faggioni, 1984) [live]
• "Live in Budapest" (Lukács, 1991) [live]
• Tokyo Recital (Fulton, 1984) [live]

Publications

• Scotto: More Than a Diva (memoir) by Renata Scotto and Octavio Roca, Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1984. ISBN 0-385-18039-X
• Konrad Dryden: Riccardo Zandonai, A Biography, Foreword by Renata Scotto, Peter Lang Inc, 1999. ISBN 0-8204-3649-6

External links

• Duffie, Bruce: Interview with Renata Scotto, January 21, 1988.
• 2005 Now Playing at the D.M.V.: Renata Scotto The New York Times 19 June 2005
• Renata Scotto Accademia Nazionale Santa Cecilia Rome]
• Renata Scotto in recital, 20 February 1982 (John Atkins, pianist) on YouTube