Italian Soprano Renata Scotto has Died, Aged 89

An acclaimed performer and teacher, Scotto performed in over 100 roles throughout her decades-long career

A highly celebrated opera singer of the 20th century, Renata Scotto gave over 300 performances in 26 roles with the Metropolitan Opera from 1965 to 1987, often with renowned tenors including José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti.

Across her career, Scotto sang in 120 roles, including title roles in Puccini’s Tosca, Verdi’s Macbeth, Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, and Riccardo Zandonai’s Francesa da Rimini.

The daughter of a police officer and a seamstress, Scotto was born in 1934, in Savona, Italy. As World War II brewed, the young Scotto would sing from her apartment window to neighbors, who would praise her with candy.

When Allied bombardment reached Savona, Scotto fled to Tovo San Giacomo, a nearby Alpine village, with her sister and mother, who took any work she could find. Her father remained behind in Savona.

At age 12, Scotto accompanied her uncle to see her first opera performance — Verdi’s Rigoletto, with Tito Gobbi in the title role. “Gobbi the great singer and Gobbi the great actor made me decide that night that I would be an opera singer,” Scotto recalled, according to The New York Times.

She moved to Milan when she was 16 to take voice and piano lessons. She stayed at a Canossian convent — the only lodging her family could afford — which she described as “somewhere between a jail and a very austere kindergarten,” where she helped with the sewing and cleaning. 

Two years later in 1952, she won a competition, which secured her debut at Milan’s Teatro Nuovo. She soon debuted at La Scala in a secondary role in Alfredo Catalani’s La Wally, and turned down later offers to return to La Scala in minor roles in favor of singing major parts at regional opera houses across Italy.

She married Lorenzo Anselmi in 1960, who was the first violinist in La Scala’s orchestra and later became her manager and coach. In 1965, she debuted as Cio-Cio-San, the title role of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, at the Metropolitan Opera, where she became the unofficial house soprano by the following decade.

In 1977, Scotto appeared as Mimì in La Bohème — a performance that inaugurated the “Live From the Met” TV broadcast series, which brought opera to millions of American homes, and helped solidify Scotto’s burgeoning career.

“Renata is the closest I have ever worked [with] to a real singing actress,” Placido Domingo told the NY Times in 1978. “There is an emphasis, a feeling she puts behind every word she interprets.”

In 1986, before retiring from the Met stage the following year, Scotto starred in Madame Butterfly, and became the first woman in the company’s history to direct a production as well as star in it. She retired from the stage in 2002.

She was a coach to major singers including Renée Fleming, Anna Netrebko, and Deborah Voigt, and presented select masterclasses at the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute, Yale University, Russian Opera Center, Tokyo University, Pittsburgh Opera, Verdi Institute, Verbier Festival and Academy, Paris Opera Bastille, Lyric Opera, and the Met’s Lindemann Young Artists Program.  

Elected president of Milan’s AsLiCo Competition in 1995, Scotto also led the Young Artists Development Program of Rome’s Accademia di Santa Cecilia. In 2003, Scotto created the annual Renata Scotto Opera Academy at the Westchester Music Conservatory in New York.

“Whenever a great singer passes away, it always strikes me that their voice stays with us but also the lessons they gave,” GRAMMY Award-winning mezzo soprano Sasha Cooke posted on Facebook. “I was very fortunate to have worked with the legendary soprano Renata Scotto while I was in the young artist program at The Metropolitan Opera and I still very much feel her impact. 

“She was kind and demanding in the same instant,” Cooke added. “We worked on bel canto rep, arias and song — here was this small beautiful woman with incredible power and wit…Thank you dear Scotto for the beauty you gave us and your generous heart. Rest in peace.”

Ms. Scotto is survived by her daughter, son, and two grandchildren. Her husband, Lorenzo, died in 2021. Our condolences to her family, friends, students, and colleagues.