Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1980, and the presenter was Roy Plumley. This week are cast away as the soprano, Renata Scotto.

To play records, This week are cast away as the soprano Renata Scotto.

Do you play records a lot?

Not a lot, but I play some.

Sometime, I mean when I, especially when I want to relax I play some record.

But classic music not singing, maybe because I sing and I want to get away from singing.

Well now you've got just eight on your island.

What's the first one you've chosen?

I chose the Arabesque of a Schuman played by the best pianist though. I mean for me and I think for everybody

but especially for me I had the best moment in my life when I heard Orovitz give a concert and the first

piece he played it was Arabesque of Schuman and I feel my body like he went out of from earth and it was in the heaven.

So this Arabesque is for me something that I can't really explain what is it but something that take me away from

everybody and everything The you're The The Horavits playing Schuman's arabesque. Now Renata you were born in Italy in Sabona. Is that on the coast?

Yes, it's near to the French coast. It's a beautiful small town. I only lived there,

I born there, and my parents still there, but I left my town when I was only 14 13 14 because I went to

Milan. It's not a pleasant place to spend your childhood but of course when you were very small the war was on did you

suffer very much from the war in Sabona? During the war we went to a little place

in the mountain near to Savona and by I was very little and I remember just as a bad dream but I don't

You know my father is a policeman

Retire policeman of course now but during the war he had to stay in the city so we were with my mother in the little...

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