Renata Scotto - The 1984 Tokyo Recital

The recital on our DVD dates back to 1984 and photographs a Renata Scotto in her full artistic maturity. At the time the singer was 50 years old, 32 of which she had spent on stage. The program is vast and varied in epochs, styles and composers and shows the elasticity of an artist of solid technique gifted with absolutely extraordinary musicality. Alongside famous pages of opera, like Lascia ch’io pianga from Handel’s Rinaldo or Tu che la vanità from Verdi’s Don Carlo, Renata Scotto tackles lesser-known pages, like the beautiful Petrarchan sonnets set by Franz Liszt in 1844/45. Here perhaps the artist gives the best of herself, exhibiting a palette of colors that is truly rich in nuances and dazzling control of vocal emission. At the end of this demanding program, based chiefly on chamber music, Renata Scotto offers three encores, two of which are dedicated to Puccini operas (Tosca and Butterfly) shrewdly kept back for a grand finale. This DVD contains a thirteen-minute video featuring the mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor, performed at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, September 1967.