100 Singers - RENATO CIONI

Renato Cioni, Tenor (1929-2014)
Donizetti: LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR (1835)
"Tombe degli avi ... Fra poco a me ricovero"
Conducted by John Pritchard / 1961

My personal opinion: An opera singer is a high-performance athlete who does not always receive due recognition. Hundreds of performances since his 1956 Spoleto debut as Edgardo in LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR were not enough to make fine Italian tenor Renato Cioni (*1929 on the island of Elba) a star of the A category. He became internationally known, however, through the TV broadcast from the ROH Covent Garden of the second act from TOSCA on February 9, 1964, alongside Maria Callas (her only principal existing sound-visual document in actual performance). The famous BBC film focuses mainly on the interplay between Callas and Tito Gobbi as Scarpia; Renato Cioni as Cavaradossi is often overlooked - in "The Callas Legacy", John Ardoin even attested "weakness" to the tenor; an evaluation not in compliance with the assessment of John Steane, who rated in "The Grand Tradition" Cioni as "admirably stylish".
Fact is, Renato Cioni was a lightweight lyric tenor who, notwithstanding a few heavier roles, was mainly used in the repertoire of a 'tenore di grazia', where he achieved his best results. In 1961 he partnered Joan Sutherland in the recordings of LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR (John Pritchard) and RIGOLETTO (Nino Sanzogno); his only studio productions of entire operas. He is convincing both as Edgardo and as the Duke, singing with the grace of a 'tenore leggero'. Already a 1956 RAI TV film of MADAMA BUTTERFLY with Anna Moffo shows, that he also mastered (just like Cesare Valletti two years later under Erich Leinsdorf) Puccini's crude Lieutenant Pinkerton without pushing his voice over natural limits. The RIGOLETTO preserved the sound of young Joan Sutherland before her diction became mushy. Also Cornell MacNeil is still in excellent fresh condition. Cioni's duke is an elegant aristrocat, even if vocally a bit glassy and thin. Sanzogno gave him the opportunity to shine after "Parmi veder le lagrime" with the often deleted cabaletta "Possente amor", which Cioni mastered superbly - without, however, daring a final C in altissimo or, as Alfredo Kraus did, a stratospheric D ...
Thus Renato Cioni's most interesting recording is the Pritchard LUCIA with a Sutherland dominating in every respect (and Merrill and Siepi in supporting roles). Dame Joan's presence is too strong for Cioni, who is really doing his best here: In high musical fashion, he sings a smooth legato (soft voice passage from one note to another) and served fine smorzando phrasings (fading tones) combined with radiant high notes. But all this does not conceal the fact that against the Australian prima donna Cioni was severely undersized. He was not the equal partner for her, just as little as for Callas. Yes, his Edgardo is an example for vocal precision and plastic diction, and yet something crucial is missing: The virile sound that makes a voice masculine. In simpler terms: Cioni's singing lacked that kind of eroticism, that triggers the acoustic seismic shock in listeners. The pairing with Sutherland ended after two recordings. When Richard Bonynge then discovered the ideal partner for his wife in the young Pavarotti, Renato Cioni became quickly sidelined. In the 1960s he had no chance against the vocal blast of a Franco Corelli or Pavarotti, who at the same time established his fame as "King of high C's" with a series of LA FILLE DU RÉGIMENT performances (interestingly, Renato Cioni had sung the role of Tonio in Italian even before Pavarotti in San Francisco and Los Angeles. And perhaps equally interesting: When he sang LUCIA with Sutherland in Dallas in 1962, the role of Arturo was sung from a then still unknown man at only age 21: Plácido Domingo, who later in his memoirs called Cioni benevolently "a star tenor" ).
He was unable to gain acceptance at the Met: After only six NORMA performances with Sutherland and Marilyn Horne in 1970, he disappeared again. Success was greater before in San Francisco, where he performed a total of 29 times between 1961 and 1969. My personal favorite Cioni recording is LA TRAVIATA from La Scala with Anna Moffo, conducted by Karajan (December 22, 1964). Pre-crisis Moffo is in good shape (albeit a little hesitant with the C's and the final E flat in "Sempre libera"). Like Cesare Valletti, Cioni is for me an ideal Alfredo, who with euphony and slight embellishments shows that the Verdi opera, first performed in 1853, still carries the heritage of bel canto in it. If you appreciate cultivated and not boastful singing, you should not miss this largely forgotten tenor to whom posterity sadly "wreathed no wreaths", as Friedrich Schiller once expressed it ...