Renata Tebaldi, the operatic soprano who died Sunday in San Marino aged 82, was one of the two great prima donnas of the early postwar era; with Maria Callas, whose style was vastly different, she was in demand in every opera house worth its salt.

She was dominant throughout Italy, where she was one of the soloists to reopen La Scala in the wake of World War II, under Toscanini in 1946. She caused a sensation in her American debut at San Francisco in 1950, and at the Metropolitan Opera she was the uncontested prima donna in such bel canto roles as “Madama Butterfly,” “Tosca,” and “Aida” from 1955.

Her fame rested on her glorious voice, a lyric-dramatic soprano displayed in almost all the major roles of Verdi’s and Puccini’s operas. Her tone was rich and refulgent and, for such a large instrument, reasonably flexible. She was a dignified, natural rather than commanding actress and that was where she differed from Callas; but her technique and sound were more reliable than those of her more volatile and exciting rival, and nobody in the past 30 years has equaled her very special achievement.

Stories abounded of the rivalry and feuding between the two divas. Rudolf Bing, who had to cope with them both at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, recorded in his memoirs that Callas cancelled her Traviatas for the 1957-58 season simply because Tebaldi had been allowed to cancel hers. “It is therefore logical,” Callas informed Bing, “that I should not perform this role either, since Tebaldi has dared to impose the above-mentioned cancellation on you.”

For a long period there existed an undeniable froideur between the two; Callas once compared Tebaldi to herself as “Coca-Cola to Champagne.” Tebaldi notoriously responded, “She says that I have no spine. That may be, but I have one thing she will never have, a heart.” For nearly 16 years they barely spoke. But they were reconciled in 1968,and by and large it was the rival groups of supporters who fanned the flames, not the sopranos themselves.

Tebaldi once reproved the New York representative of her recording company because he did not dare to tell her that Callas’s was the best recording of “La Gioconda” to study before making her own; and the public was lucky to have two such contrasting divas before them, and to be able to compare their respective merits and defects, role to role, aria to aria. On the whole, their gifts were complementary.

Tebaldi was born at Pesaro, Rossini’s birthplace on the Italian Adriatic coast, on February 1, 1922. Her father was a professional cellist from whom Renata and her mother became estranged.

As a child, Renata overcame polio, and for six years she studied piano. When it was discovered that she had a good voice she commenced voice training. She studied at the Arrigo Boito Conservatory in Pesaro and then at the Gioacchino Rossini Conservatory in Parma. Aged 18, she became a pupil of the celebrated operatic soprano Carmen Melis, and later she studied with Giuseppe Pais.

Her professional debut, in 1944, was at the northern Italian town of Rovigo, as Helen of Troy in Boito’s “Mefistofele.” In December 1945, at Trieste, she sang Desdemona in Verdi’s “Otello,” and word began to spread of her inordinate talent and her beauty. She came to prominence when she was invited by Arturo Toscanini to take part, as the only newcomer, in the re-opening celebrations for La Scala in 1946; she was heard in excerpts from Rossini’s “Moise.”

Toscanini described her voice as “angelic” and Tebaldi went on to sing for him in Verdi’s “Requiem,” and then in the same work under Victor De Sabata. Her soaring phrases and beautiful sound are preserved on recordings of both occasions in 1950.

After her great success at La Scala, she sang the length and breadth of Italy before embarking on her international career. At this stage, besides Italian opera, Tebaldi also sang Mozart and Wagner.

She had made her stage debut at La Scala, Milan, as Mimi, in Puccini’s “La Boheme” – the role that was to become her calling-card in opera houses around the world. Her London debut in 1950, as Desdemona, caused something of stir: it was a role in which her sympathetic interpretation and loving treatment of the text were most compelling. She recorded it twice, the second time under Herbert von Karajan.

She first appeared in the United States in San Francisco, as Aida, another of her best parts, also in 1950. Her New York debut, as Desdemona at the Metropolitan, followed – to acclaim – in 1955 and she remained at the Met for the next 20 years. Over that period she sang more than 250 performances of a dozen roles, most often Mimi, Maddalena in Giordano’s Andrea Chenier and the title part in Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda.”

One New York critic compared her, at recital, with Botticelli’s “Primavera”: “Botticelli would have rushed for his brushes had he seen her.” Her sincerity of purpose and well-nigh faultless style were the secrets of the public’s veneration. She also possessed the popular touch. Long before Pavarotti had been heard of, Tebaldi filled the vast Lewisohn Stadium in New York and had her admirers in thrall in everything from “Aida” to “If I loved you” from “Oklahoma!”

A vocal critic called her “The Goddess of Song.” In America she was revered for being a warm and lovable person as much as for the intense humanity that made her so suited to portraying Puccini’s heroines: her impulsive Tosca, warm Mimi and tragic Butterfly. She was a straightforward person who responded readily to the adulation she received.

At the same time, with opera managers, such as Rudolf Bing at the Met, she showed her mettle, always refusing parts that might not suit her, and continuing – very sensibly – to interpret those that did. Bing once said that he found Maria Callas’s forthright self-expression much easier to deal with than Tebaldi’s reserved, but inflexible, will. “She has,” he commented, “dimples of iron.”

In Italy she was just as much admired and dubbed “La nostra Renata.” When she returned in 1967 to Naples, scene of some of her early triumphs, as Gioconda, she was showered with praise. And there would always be something specifically Italian about her voice production and her generous, expansive manner of singing.

She sang her final role at the Met, again as Desdemona, in 1973, and retired from performing publicly in 1976. Thereafter she devoted much of her time to teaching. Asked in 2002 why she had retired relatively young, Tebaldi said she wanted to avoid “the mortifying season of decline.” After she stopped teaching, she described herself as “being honored,” and her legions of fans internationally provided her with the emotional support she never received from her own family. She never married.

In the late 1940s she had signed an exclusive contact with Decca. She remained loyal to Decca for many years, recording virtually her whole repertory for the company, many of her roles twice over. The recordings disclose her consistency of style and, until some late offerings, her beauty of tone.

Even better are some live recordings, such as Leonora in Verdi’s “La forza del destino” in audio from the Florence Festival of 1953 and on video at Naples in 1958.These performances, which caught Tebaldi at the height of her powers, are the most memorable souvenirs of a remarkably distinguished career.