Lucia Valentini Terrani - opera singer

Colaratura mezzo-soprano noted for velvety softness of agile voice

Lucia Valentini Terrani in 1982: The singer had a
powerful stage presence as well as a brilliant voice 

The opera singer Lucia Valentini Terrani, who became one of Italy’s most captivating mezzo-sopranos, blessed with an agile, velvety voice and magnetic stage presence, was born on this day in 1946 in Padua, in the Veneto region.

Equally at home in contralto roles, she was among the most notable interpreters of the 18th and 19th century bel canto repertoire and was a major influence on the way the Gaetano Rossini repertoire evolved over the last three decades of the 20th century.

After her debut in 1969 and breakthrough in 1973, Valentini Terrani sang at most of the world’s major opera houses, in South America and Russia as well as Europe and the United States.

Little is known about her early life in Padua before she attended the city’s Cesare Pollini Music Conservatory. From there she moved to the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice, where she was a student under the former soprano Iris Adami Corradetti.

There, she laid the foundations for her career. At that point, she performed as Lucia Valentini, making her debut in 1969 in Brescia as Angelina in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, a role that would become her signature. 

With its demanding coloratura and nuanced comedy elements, La Cenerentola showcased Valentini’s vocal brilliance but also her theatrical finesse. 

Following her triumph in the International Competition for New Rossini Voices organised by the broadcaster Rai in 1972, her big breakthrough came in 1973, again in La Cenerentola, this time at Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Stepping in for Teresa Berganza, one of the most popular and admired mezzo-sopranos of the modern era, Valentini reprised the Angelina role to great acclaim. The performance effectively launched her international career.

Alberto Terrani said he was "spellbound
by the beauty of her face" when they met

It was around this time that she met Alberto Terrani, an actor, at a party in Padua. He described being “spellbound by the beauty of her face” and “enraptured by her voice when she started to sing.”

They fell in love and were married in 1973, at which point he gave up his own career to become her manager and she added his name to hers

Valentini Terrani’s artistry was deeply entwined with Rossini’s music. She mastered both his comic heroines and his more florid, serious roles, such as Arsace in Semiramide, Tancredi, and Malcolm in La donna del lago. 

The last three were so-called “trouser roles”, in which a male character is sung by a female singer. Valentini Terrani’s versatile, expressive and richly coloured voice allowed her to perform such roles with convincing masculinity and emotional depth. 

Yet her repertoire was not limited to Rossini and his genre. She also ventured into baroque opera, portraying Medea in Cavalli’s Giasone, Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Bradamante in Handel’s Alcina, as well as dramatic and lyrical roles such as Eboli in Don Carlos, Carmen, Charlotte in Werther, and Quickly in Falstaff. 

Her international engagements took her to the Metropolitan Opera (debuting in 1975 as Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri), Covent Garden, Paris, Moscow, Buenos Aires, and beyond. 

Valentini Terrani's career was cut short
after she was diagnosed with leukemia

On her visits to Moscow, she embraced Russian opera, performing with distinction in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. 

Valentini Terrani’s career was cut short when she was diagnosed with leukemia in 1996. Encouraged by her friend and fellow opera singer José Carreras, who had recovered from the disease, she travelled to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, where he had been treated successfully. Sadly, though, she died there in 1998 aged just 51, following complications from a bone marrow transplant.

Her legacy endures not only in recordings and memories but also in Padua, where a square near the Teatro Verdi bears her name.  There is also a small hotel in Padua, supported by charity, to accommodate hospital visitors and patients in need of repeated treatment, named the Casa di Accoglienza Lucia Valentini Terrani.

It was inspired by an act of generosity by the singer shortly before she died in Seattle, when she was so dismayed to find that the relatives of fellow patients were sleeping in their cars because accommodation was so expensive that she asked her husband to pay for their hotel rooms.

The Basilica di Sant'Antonio,
with its Byzantine domes

Travel tip:

Lucia Valentini Terrani’s home city of Padua, in Veneto, has a population of around 217,000. It is rich in history, art and architectural treasures. The biggest attractions for visitors include the Scrovegni Chapel, a medieval gem that houses a fresco cycle by Giotto often cited as the dawn of Renaissance painting; the Basilica of Saint’Antonio, notable for its Byzantine-style domes, that houses the relics of St. Anthony and features masterpieces by Donatello; the Palazzo della Ragione, once the seat of Padua’s medieval government and today a civic building with a bustling food market on the ground floor, the elegant Piazza dei Signori, with its beautiful Renaissance clock tower; and Prato della Valle, a vast oval space, built on the site of a former Roman amphitheatre and one of Europe’s largest public squares, which features statues of historic figures around a central island. 

Find a hotel in Padua

Brescia's Roman heritage is visible in the ruins
of the Tempio Capitolino in Piazza del Foro

Travel tip:

Brescia, where Valentini Terrani made her public debut, is a city in Lombardy midway between Bergamo and Verona often described as an underrated cultural gem, a mix of Roman and medieval heritage. The Santa Giulia Museum, housed in a former monastery and a UNESCO World Heritage, showcases Roman villas, medieval frescoes, and treasures such as the Desiderius Cross, while Brescia’s ancient heart includes the Capitolium Temple and Forum and other Roman remains that date back to 73AD. Perched on the Colle Cidneo, with panoramic views over the city, is the well-preserved Castello di Brescia.  In the centre of the city, the Piazza della Loggia is a Renaissance square with an astronomical clock and elegant arcades, while the Piazza Paolo VI is home to two cathedrals - the Duomo Vecchio and the Duomo Nuovo, bringing together Romanesque and Baroque styles side by side.  

Search for accommodation in Brescia

Also on this day:

1875: The birth of flautist Leonardo De Lorenzo

1941: The birth of artist and designer Ugo Nespolo

1967: The birth of Tiziana ‘Tosca’ Donati

1991: The Mafia murder of Palermo businessman Libero Grassi

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Katia Ricciarelli - operatic soprano

Star whose peak years were in ‘70s and ‘80s

Katia Ricciarelli was at her peak
for about two decades

The opera singer Katia Ricciarelli, who at her peak was seen as soprano who combined a voice of sweet timbre with engaging stage presence, was born on this day in 1946 at Rovigo in the Veneto.

She rose to fame quickly after making her professional debut as Mimi in Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème in Mantua in 1969 and in the 1970s was in demand for the major soprano roles.

Between 1972 and 1975, Ricciarelli sang at all the major European and American opera houses, including Lyric Opera of Chicago (1972), Teatro alla Scala in Milan (1973), the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (1974) and the Metropolitan Opera (1975).

In 1981, she began an association with the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro that she maintained throughout the ‘80s.

In addition to her opera performances, Ricciarelli also appeared in a number of films.

Ricciarelli performed at most of Europe and
America's major opera houses

She was Desdemona in Franco Zeffirelli's film version of Giuseppe Verdi's Otello in 1986, alongside Plácido Domingo. In 2005 she won the best actress prize Nastro d'Argento, awarded by the Italian film journalists, for her role in Pupi Avati's La seconda notte di nozze (2005).

During her peak years, Desdemona was one of her signature roles, while she was also lauded for her Giulietta in Vincenzo Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi and for her interpretations of Gaetano Donizetti’s Anna Bolena.

Ricciarelli’s most well received Rossini roles were Bianca in Bianca e Falliero, Elena in La donna del lago and and Amenaide in Tancredi.

As her career progressed, however, critics felt her voice became weaker and without some of its former lustre, which some have attributed to her being pushed into heavy, highly dramatic roles, such as Puccini’s Tosca or Verdi’s Aida, which were not suited to her voice.

Ricciarelli often performed alongside José
Carreras, with whom she enjoyed a romance

Some opera audiences are notoriously unforgiving. Her Aida at the Royal Opera House in 1983 was greeted with whistles, while in 1986 in Trieste her debut as Bellini’s Norma provoked a similar reaction.

Her career as a singer at the top level ended in the early 1990s. She made her last appearance at the Metropolitan Opera in 1990 alongside Domingo in Otello.

Born Catiuscia Mariastella Ricciarelli to a poor family in Rovigo, she was brought up by her mother after her father died while she was very young.

She loved singing as a child and, once she was old enough to work, began to save money so that she could enrol at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory of Venice, where she had the opportunity to study with the soprano Iris Adami Corradetti.

Essentially a lyric soprano, following her operatic debut in 1969 she won the Voci Verdiane competition, organised by Italy’s national broadcaster Rai, and established herself as a superb Verdi singer, hailed as the “new Tebaldi” after Renata Tebaldi, a soprano popular in the postwar years who, coincidentally, had made her stage debut in Rovigo in 1944, two years before Ricciarelli was born.

Katia Ricciarelli has appeared regularly on Italian TV
since she ended her career in opera

Although her operatic prowess began to wane, Ricciarelli’s career did not. She took up the position of artistic director of the Teatro Politeama di Lecce in 1998 and in the first decade of the new century turned increasingly to acting and appeared in television dramas such as Don Matteo alongside Terence Hill.

In 2005, after being nominated artistic director of the Sferisterio Opera Festival in Macerata, she began her professional relationship with the director Pupi Avati, who would later cast her in his film The Friends of the Margherita Bar (2009).

The following years brought a brief flirtation with politics as a centre-left candidate for the municipal council elections in Rodi Garganico, a beach resort near Foggia where she spent many summer holidays, more television work, an autobiography published in 2008 and a performance at La Fenice in Venice to mark her 40 years in music, in which she performed duets with pop singers Massimo Ranieri and Michael Bolton, among others.

A regular guest on variety and talk shows on Italian television, in 2006 she participated in the reality show La fattoria (Italian version of The Farm) on Canale 5.

Ricciarelli was married for 18 years to the TV presenter Pippo Baudo, the couple divorcing in 2004. She had previously had a relationship with her fellow opera star José Carreras that spanned 13 years.

Piazza Vittorio Emanuele is Rovigo's main square

Travel tip:

Rovigo is a town of around 52,000 people in the Veneto, which stands on the plain between the Po and the Adige rivers, about 80km (50 miles) southwest of Venice and 40km (25 miles) northeast of Ferrara, on the Adigetto Canal.  The architecture of the town has both Venetian and Ferrarese influences. The main sights include a Duomo dedicated to the  Martyr Pope Steven I, originally built before the 11th century, but rebuilt in 1461 and again in 1696, and the Madonna del Soccorso, a church best known as La Rotonda, built between 1594 and 1606 by Francesco Zamberlan of Bassano, a pupil of Palladio, to an octagonal plan, and with a  campanile, standing at 57m (187ft), that was built according to plans by Baldassarre Longhena (1655–1673). The walls of the interior of the church are covered by 17th centuries paintings by prominent provincial and Venetian artists, including Francesco Maffei, Domenico Stella, Pietro Liberi, Antonio Zanchi and Andrea Celesti. There are the ruins of a 10th century castle, of which two towers remain.

The beach at Roci Garganico is famed for
its soft sand and shallow waters

Travel tip:

Rodi Garganico is a seaside resort in the Apulia region, a 100km (62 miles) drive northeast from Foggia on a promontory east of the Lago di Varano lagoon. It part of the Gargano National Park.  It has for centuries been a major centre for the production of citrus fruits such us Arance del Gargano (Gargano Oranges) and the Limone Femminiello del Gargano (Gargano Lemons), both with DOP (Protected Designation of Origin) status under European Union regulations.  As well as its many kilometres of sandy beaches, Rodi Garganico attracts visitors for the local cuisine, which features orange salad, salad with wild onions, many fish dishes and a good variety of local wines.

More reading:

Alessandro Safina - the pop-opera star who made his stage debut alongside Katia Ricciarelli

Why Renata Tebaldi was said to have 'the voice of an angel'



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