# What was the deal with Scotto?



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

There was a period when Renata Scotto was one of the main stars at the Met. In her early years she was a fine bel canto singer, but during most of her heyday her voice reminded me of Callas past her prime but without the Callas allure. Did she know where Levine's scandals lay burried or was she better live than the way she sounded on recordings during her most popular days at the Met. She was successful as Lady Macbeth, but a voice that is not conventionally attractive is not a handicap in this role. Please sound off.


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## Pip (Aug 16, 2013)

There is a DVD from the Met of a live Otello with Vickers, McNeil and Scotto. She was great, and the duet in act 3 is outstanding - I doubt it has been better sung on stage. A great DVD. 
I saw her Lady MacBeth at CG under Muti , terrific.
She sang a great many performances at the MET for good reason. She was great. You should try and get a few broadcasts under your belt. Try the Sirius radio station for Met re-runs.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Ms. Scotto started her career singing Amina, Lucia, Mimi, Gilda, Violetta... then she deemed herself a modern reincarnation of the 'soprano drammatico d'agilità' and she tackled not only Norma, also Tosca, Lady Macbeth, Amelia... even Abigaille!. Roles that were not really suitable for her light-lyrical instrument.

Her timbre was not conventionally beautiful to start with, and it turned into something unpleasant trying to manage those demanding parts above.

In my view, it would have been much better to sing "Anna Bolena", "Maria Stuarda", "Lucrezia Borgia",...

However, when she sang those 'other' roles, she never tried to 'far la voce grossa', or degenerated into a shriek. She was always using legato, looking for the nuances of the character, with a variety of accents, a very capable and original phraser. It was a real creative process. With rather indifferent results, true, what makes it sadder, in a way.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Recently, I've got her _Francesca da Rimini_ from the Met (with Domingo) and thought it was one of the worst things from her. I do like(d) some of her performances of "unsuitable" roles, but agree that one has to be careful. There many duds among recordings that show what she could do at her best.


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

La Traviata with Votto/La Scala is worth a listen


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## Yashin (Jul 22, 2011)

She was the real deal, a diva! Controversial, beautiful distinctive voice, good looks, great actress. OK she had a wobble in her voice later that was like a swinging rope but what presence, what a voice. Passion.

Whether it is Norma, Mimi or Sour Angelica....Scotto left an impression and i bet she has been the cause of many an argument between opera loving friends.

Watch her Finale of Sour Angelica...stunning. Listen to her Butterfly with Bergonzi or her live recordings...wowow!!


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I really appreciate the perspectives from other points of view. Often a quirky singer is better experienced live. I've heard her early stuff and it is wonderful. I don't get the good looks part. She looks like a Munchkin to me. That was mean. Sorry.


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## Revenant (Aug 27, 2013)

Yashin said:


> She was the real deal, a diva! Controversial, beautiful distinctive voice, good looks, great actress. OK she had a wobble in her voice later that was like a swinging rope but what presence, what a voice. Passion.
> 
> Whether it is Norma, Mimi or Sour Angelica....Scotto left an impression and i bet she has been the cause of many an argument between opera loving friends.
> 
> Watch her Finale of Sour Angelica...stunning. Listen to her Butterfly with Bergonzi or her live recordings...wowow!!


The Scotto-Bergonzi Butterfly is considered one of the best recordings of the opera, at least vocally. So there's that at least.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Scotto, for me, is one of those singers for whom artistry outweighs the problems with the voice. Even in her younger days, it was never a particularly beautiful instrument, but she was always a thinking artist and uses her voice with great imagination. She is often likened to Callas in that respect, but Callas early on in her career, could sing with great beauty of tone, and even in the late 50s, there are examples of sustained beauty (in _Al dolce guidami_ from *Anna Bolena* for instance) that Scotto could never quite achieve.

That said, she was a totally committed artist and could be absolutely thrilling both on stage and on record. Her (late-ish) recording of *Suor Angelica* makes more sense of the role than most others. A bit hysterical perhaps, but how else can you make sense of Angelica's suicide at the end of the opera. I watched a few different versions of this scene on youtube, and the Scotto is hair-raisingly thrilling, making most other singers seem merely polite.

Technically, though the instrument itself may not have been of the best quality, she used it with great skill. Like Callas, she had a superb _legato_, and knew exactly how to use _portamento_. She also sings a poised, perfectly supported top Bb in the _Libera me_ of the Verdi *Requiem*, and elsewhere gives one of the most sheerly dramatic versions of the aria ever committed to disc, really singing off and making sense of the words.

Her Desdemona (in Levine's recording with Domingo, and also in the Meropolitan Opera DVD with Vickers) has more character and personality than almost any other I have come across. Where the likes of Te Kanawa, Tebaldi, Rethberg or Margaret Price, beautifully sung as they are, are happy to give us a pale, placid Desdemona, Scotto breathes more life into her, reminding us that marrying Otello was in itself a somewhat defiant act. That her utter devotion to him should end up seeming so thoroughly misplaced makes the last scene even more moving than it usually is.

My one problem with her is that she wasn't always able to conceal the artistry that went into her performances, and her acting could seem a bit "stagey", unlike that of Stratas, for instance, another singer adored by the Met, and I would suggest that, as an actress, at least Stratas, was her superior. On the other hand, Stratas didn't have Scotto's vocal security, despite the wobble that affected her in later years.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

I'm too young to remember most of Renata Scotto's career. The impression I get from recordings and from books like J.B. Steane's _Singers of the Century_ is that her musical and intellectual curiosity and dramatic flair led her, during the 1970's, to begin exploring beyond the light-lyric/coloratura parts she had been singing. Thus she began singing _spinto_ roles like Lady Macbeth, etc.

I think Scotto had a beautiful voice; it was a very textured, colorful, Italianate sound. What I find unattractive is her high register as heard during the late 1970's. On the Met telecast _Luisa Miller_ of 1979, for example (I have the DVD), her middle register and soft singing are still very attractive, but her loud high notes sound sort of like screams. Her recorded Desdemona of 1978 (RCA, with Domingo) has great strength of character and much vocal beauty, but again her loud high notes are shrill; and for all her subtlety and intelligence I really prefer a soprano like Tebaldi, Freni, Te Kanawa, or Fleming in this role. With those singers there's an "angelic" quality to the tone that is exactly what I, personally, like to hear in Desdemona's music. I think, too, that as her voice declined Scotto tried to compensate by over-inflecting phrases and that this worked against communicating the essential innocence and simplicity of a youthful character like Desdemona or Luisa; sometimes, I just want to hear a simpler, purer "line." But again, that's just a personal preference. Scotto was a great singer and artist.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

For an opera forum y'all rock So much sharing of knowledge.


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## Revenant (Aug 27, 2013)

Bellinilover said:


> I'm too young to remember most of Renata Scotto's career. The impression I get from recordings and from books like J.B. Steane's _Singers of the Century_ is that her musical and intellectual curiosity and dramatic flair led her, during the 1970's, to begin exploring beyond the light-lyric/coloratura parts she had been singing. Thus she began singing _spinto_ roles like Lady Macbeth, etc.
> 
> I think Scotto had a beautiful voice; it was a very textured, colorful, Italianate sound. What I find unattractive is her high register as heard during the late 1970's. On the Met telecast _Luisa Miller_ of 1979, for example (I have the DVD), her middle register and soft singing are still very attractive, but her loud high notes sound sort of like screams. Her recorded Desdemona of 1978 (RCA, with Domingo) has great strength of character and much vocal beauty, but again her loud high notes are shrill; and for all her subtlety and intelligence I really prefer a soprano like Tebaldi, Freni, Te Kanawa, or Fleming in this role. With those singers there's an "angelic" quality to the tone that is exactly what I, personally, like to hear in Desdemona's music. I think, too, that as her voice declined Scotto tried to compensate by over-inflecting phrases and that this worked against communicating the essential innocence and simplicity of a youthful character like Desdemona or Luisa; sometimes, I just want to hear a simpler, purer "line." But again, that's just a personal preference. Scotto was a great singer and artist.


Bellinilover, written as well as could the "next" J.D. Steane. Love this post.


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## Operafocus (Jul 17, 2011)

One of my favourite recordings of Faust is with her, Ghiaurov and Kraus. I'm not a big soprano fan (I know, I know, throw daggers if you must) but what I find with her is that there's something so..._honest _about her performance that it works for me. I can't explain it any better than that, really.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Revenant said:


> Bellinilover, written as well as could the "next" J.D. Steane. Love this post.


Thank you! It's nice to know I'm beginning to sound like him. He was great and without question my favorite writer on operatic voices. I'll admit that the part I wrote above about Scotto overinflecting was basically borrowed from Steane and others; I don't know whether I would have noticed that habit of hers on my own.

Edited to add: I believe his chapter on Scotto is in volume two of _Singers of the Century_, if you want to look it up. There's also discussion of her in _The Grand Tradition_ but only up to the year 1970.


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## Revenant (Aug 27, 2013)

Bellinilover said:


> Thank you! It's nice to know I'm beginning to sound like him. He was great and without question my favorite writer on operatic voices. I'll admit that the part I wrote above about Scotto overinflecting was basically borrowed from Steane and others; I don't know whether I would have noticed that habit of hers on my own.
> 
> Edited to add: I believe his chapter on Scotto is in volume two of _Singers of the Century_, if you want to look it up. There's also discussion of her in _The Grand Tradition_ but only up to the year 1970.


I have all his volumes of The Singers of the Century, so I'll be sure to re-read it, as I frequently do with Steane. Curiously, my first introduction to J.D. was _his_ _circa_ 1964 introduction to the complete plays of Christopher Marlowe of which he was the editor. J.D. was an English lit scholar before he began writing extensively about opera.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Revenant said:


> I have all his volumes of The Singers of the Century, so I'll be sure to re-read it, as I frequently do with Steane. Curiously, my first introduction to J.D. was _his_ _circa_ 1964 introduction to the complete plays of Christopher Marlowe of which he was the editor. J.D. was an English lit scholar before he began writing extensively about opera.


It was J. B. Steane's book *The Grand Tradition* that first got me interested in singers of the pre-LP era, and what riches were in store for me. His enthusiasm for his subject was totally infectious, and his criticism always generous and insightful. Such thoughtful and detailed analysis is sorely missed in today's world of the 140 character soundbite.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Ms. Scotto recorded a studio version of Norma, conducted by Mr. Levine, that has never really engaged me. I vastly prefer this live version with Muti:










However, in the duet with Mirella Freni is where I find my favorite (partial) rendition of the role by Scotto:


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

GregMitchell said:


> It was J. B. Steane's book *The Grand Tradition* that first got me interested in singers of the pre-LP era, and what riches were in store for me. His enthusiasm for his subject was totally infectious, and his criticism always generous and insightful. Such thoughtful and detailed analysis is sorely missed in today's world of the 140 character soundbite.


GregMitchell: So as not to derail this thread, I've sent you a PM if you'd like to take a look.


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