On the 10th anniversary of Renata Tebaldi’s death, the San Marino Philatelic and Numismatic State Society wants to dedicate three stamps to the great soprano to celebrate her through a solemn and lively composition in a velvety and surrealistic atmosphere reinforced by a musical texture in the background.
In the foreground is the shiny beauty of the Italian singer associated with three national theatres, which refer to her audience during her whole artistic and professional career.
Among the most significant theatres in Tebaldi’s life are the Alla Scala Theatre in Milan, where she debuted in 1946 in the concert for its reopening after the reconstruction, and the San Carlo Theatre in Naples, whose audience had a constant preference for the soprano sealed by a gold medal minted for her remarkable performance in Verdi’s Traviata in 1951.
These two well-known theatres are reproduced in the two side stamps to show the strong link with Tebaldi and her artistic history.
A more “human” tie can be found in the central stamp. It shows Tebaldi and the Titano Theatre, the most important playhouse in the Republic of San Marino. Actually, the soprano established a special relationship with this “extraordinary country”, as she herself defined San Marino. She was so deeply impressed by the historical-naturalistic charm of this place and even more by the warm hospitality of its inhabitants that she decided to spend in San Marino most of the last years of her life and died here on 19 December 2004 at the age of 82.
Ten years later, her beloved Republic wants to celebrate Tebaldi as an artist and a woman through a picture trip in the places of her human and professional history, her beauty, her costumes as well as in the spontaneity of her smile: the small “colorful score” of Tebaldi’s life, which continues to play in the heart of her past and present audience.