New Shape, New Song

The loyal fans of Soprano Renata Tebaldi had a hard time in recent years detecting the girlish silhouette of Mimi, say, or Leonora beneath their favorite's puffed-up form. Unlike her archrival Callas. who had the theatrical canniness to diet to a sleek whisper of her former self, Tebaldi apparently felt that it was sufficient for a soprano simply to trundle on stage and sing.

But last year, while in Japan, Tebaldi looked in the mirror and was appalled by what she saw. Her late mother was no longer at her side to tempt her with plates of pasta, so she promptly went on a diet. She hired two Japanese masseuses, who pounded away at her for an hour and a half every day, and she dropped 24 Ibs. in six months and dyed her hair red. When she returned to the Metropolitan Opera last week after an absence of a year, she decided that having refurbished her form, she would also refurbish an old --to Met audiences--unfamiliar role. She insisted on singing the title part in Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, an opera that had been performed at the Met just twice, a half-century ago.

Tough Trick. Adriana may be a stranger to U.S. and English audiences, but the opera is a repertory staple in Italy. Composer Cilea (pronounced che-lay-ah) wrote it when he was 35, and it established his reputation. He coasted on it from its premiere in 1902 until his death in 1950. It is a respectable enough opera, reminiscent of Puccini in its throbbing arias and duets and in its yearning strings. It even has a predictably pathetic ending, in which the heroine is punished for the crime of having fallen in love.

The trick for a soprano in Adriana is to seize the stage before the tenor has a chance to plant himself with arms thrown wide to uncoil one of the soaring rhapsodies that billow through the length of the opera. The trick is particularly tough when the tenor is as talented a scene stealer as Franco Corelli, but Tebaldi handled the job nicely. When she came on in Act I in an ivory gown and red hair, she looked so startlingly unlike the matronly Tebaldi of other years that even her devoted claque paused in surprise for the space of a hand-beat before crashing into applause.

Nor had the voice dwindled with the poundage. Adriana is an opera in which Tebaldi can sing much of the time toward the center of her range, where she is happiest, and in last week's performance her voice had all the remembered caressing skill that can breathe dramatic life into a line with effortless ease. Her role gave her ample opportunity to float out those clear, carrying pianissimos that reach to the last row in the house.

Not So Simple. Tebaldi was alive with animal grace; she made theatrical sense out of the threadbare story of an actress who loves a nobleman, loses him, and is reunited with him on her deathbed. The Met's new production was as handsome as its heroine--a succession of rococo interiors filled with wandering wigs and satins--and Tenor Corelli was in good form. But even at his best last week, he was shaded by Tebaldi.

The soprano herself seemed more impressed by the success of her shape than by the triumph of her song. Her whole life, she says, has changed: "People used to say to me, 'Renata, you are too simple,' but now with my new clothes I think they will not say it." She adds, with almost no smile: "The fans are saying now that I am more glamorous than Callas."

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