One of the most beloved opera singers of all time, Ms. Tibaldi was a singer of overwhelming expressivity and matchless vocal allure; the most sumptuously beautiful lirico-spinto soprano voice (one combining lighter lyrical and weightier dramatic qualities) to emerge from Italy in the 20th century.

She beguiled listeners with the sheer plummy richness of her voice, the melting legato phrases, the deeply expressive yet never maudlin emotional quality of her singing, the unearthly beauty of her floated pianissimo high notes and the temperament she could summon in moments of dramatic intensity.

So great was her popularity, that two decades after retiring, in the mid 1990s, when she returned again to New York to sign copies of an authorized biography by Carlamaria Casanova, "Tebaldi: The Voice of an Angel" (Baskerville Publishers), a line of autograph-seekers stretched from the Met's gift shop across Lincoln Center Plaza and up Broadway.

The soprano Renata Tebaldi, one of the most beloved opera singers of all time - Arturo Toscanini, hard to please, said she had "the voice of an angel" - died yesterday in the Republic of San Marino, where she had a home, her doctor told The Associated Press. Miss Tebaldi, who had been in failing health for several months, was 82.

At her best, in roles like Puccini's Mimi and Tosca and Verdi's Desdemona and Alice Ford, Miss Tebaldi was a singer of overwhelming expressivity and matchless vocal allure; arguably, hers was the most sumptuously beautiful lirico-spinto soprano voice (one combining lighter lyrical and weightier dramatic qualities) to emerge from Italy in the 20th century.

Cooler heads could fault her for what often seemed incomplete technique, some strident full-voiced top notes when the vocal line took her above high B-flat, and occasional lapses in pitch. But most opera buffs and critics found it impossible to have a cool head when listening to Renata Tebaldi. She beguiled listeners with the sheer plummy richness of her voice, the melting legato phrases, the deeply expressive yet never maudlin emotional quality of her singing, the unearthly beauty of her floated pianissimo high notes and the temperament she could summon in moments of dramatic intensity.

Though a dedicated artist, she was reluctant to challenge herself. She avoided singing in any language other than Italian, deeming French too nasal and German too guttural, always afraid to compromise the beauty of her sound in her native tongue. But what she considered cautiousness, some critics thought complacency. A vocal crisis in 1963, compounded by exhaustion, compelled her to take a year off, during which she recuperated and reworked her technique. When she returned to the stage in 1964, even some of her most ardent fans conceded that her voice had lost some of its luster.

Still, during what she called her "second career," Miss Tebaldi did some exquisite singing and continued to win understandable devotion from the public. After a deeply affecting and vocally exquisite performance as Desdemona in Verdi's "Otello" one night at the Metropolitan Opera, the audience kept her coming back for so many curtain calls that she finally appeared wearing her coat around her costume, to signal that she needed to go home.

Tall and stately, she was a lovely woman with creamy white skin, big blue eyes, and trademark dimples when she smiled. Rudolf Bing, the crusty general manager of the Met during Miss Tebaldi's prime years, knew her demanding side. "Miss Renata Tebaldi was always sweet and very firm," he once said. "She had dimples of iron."

During the 1950's, she endured a public rivalry with the soprano Maria Callas. Biographies of the two divas present contrary accounts of who started it and how. The dispute was fueled by publicists and an eager press. But artistically, the idea that they were opposites - Callas the galvanizing dramatic artist and Tebaldi the supreme vocalist who valued beauty of sound above all else - was wrongheaded. In roles like Violetta from the Verdi opera "La Traviata," Callas could sing with vocal elegance and vulnerability; in roles like Verdi's Aida, Miss Tebaldi could be fiery and impetuous.

For all Miss Tebaldi's accomplishments, her career faltered in the late 1960's. When she retired in 1976, she was only 54. Still, she began early and had as active and successful a first 15 years as any singer of the 20th century.

Renata Ersilia Clotilde Tebaldi was born on Feb. 1, 1922, in Pesaro, Italy. Her father, Teobaldo Tebaldi, was a wounded soldier from the First World War when he met and married Giuseppina Barbieri, a gifted singer who had wanted a musical career but became a nurse. Six years younger than his wife, Teobaldo was restless and unfaithful. The marriage fell apart when Renata, their only child, was 3. Giuseppina took the little girl back to her hometown, Langhirano, outside Parma.

Not long afterward the child woke one morning and could hardly stand. The diagnosis was polio. She began treatments - injections, massages, thermal compresses, physical therapy - that lasted five years but proved successful. During this time she and her mother bonded tightly. When Miss Tebaldi's career began, her mother traveled with her constantly, essentially continuing until, at 68, she died in New York in 1957, a loss that devastated Miss Tebaldi. (Despite periodic meetings over the years with her father, they never fully reconciled.)

At first as a child, Miss Tebaldi was drawn to the piano, and she enrolled in studies at the conservatory in Parma, which necessitated a difficult commute. When she was 17, her piano teacher persuaded her to study voice at the conservatory with Ettore Campogalliani, who would later recall her as a scrupulous, perceptive student with a passion for music who kept a certain distance between herself and others. Later the renowned vocal pedagogue Carmen Melis became her most important teacher.

Her opera debut was in 1944, in the smaller role of Elena in Boito's "Mefistofele" at the regional theater in Rovigo, Italy. Instant success propelled her into appearances in Parma as Puccini's Mimi in "La Bohème," her first Desdemona and other roles. In 1946, she auditioned with Toscanini at La Scala in Milan, and Miss Tebaldi later said that she remembered every detail of it: her queasiness as she waited backstage, the fearsome presence of the gruff maestro, and finally Toscanini's shouts of "Brava, brava!" This led to a career-making appearance in a concert to reopen the La Scala opera house, heavily damaged during the Second World War.

By the time of her much-anticipated Met debut in January 1955, as Desdemona, Miss Tebaldi was already a celebrated singer. Today's opera buffs can only swoon looking at the cast list that night, with Mario Del Monaco as Otello, Leonard Warren as Iago and Fritz Stiedry conducting. The critic Olin Downes hedged in his initial assessment for The New York Times. But by the time of her first Met Mimi, in February, Downes was duly impressed. "It is a voice of range and colors of all sorts, and one that throbs with feeling," he wrote.

Singing always came first for Miss Tebaldi. She never married and had no children. Yet for a 1995 biography, she openly discussed several romances: a youthful attachment with a handsome medical student to whom she was briefly engaged; a lighthearted relationship with Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, the renowned bass of Italian and Russian heritage; and, most significantly, an intense romance with the conductor Arturo Basile, a hardy and generous man who was in the last phase of a deteriorating marriage when he and Miss Tebaldi began their four-year relationship in 1958.

In a 1995 interview with The Times, Miss Tebaldi said she had no regrets about her single life. "I was in love many times," she said, flashing her dimpled smile. "This is very good for a woman." But she added, "How could I have been a wife, a mother and a singer? Who takes care of the piccolini when you go around the world? Your children would not call you Mama, but Renata."

In 1973, Miss Tebaldi sang her final performance at the Met, again as Desdemona, with James McCracken in the title role, Sherrill Milnes as Iago and a young James Levine conducting. She had sung some 270 performances with the Met, a house where she considered herself "la regina" - the queen.

>From then on she sang only in recitals. In January 1976, she made it partway through a recital at Carnegie Hall, which she assumed would be her farewell to New York. She had to stop because she was "too emotional," as Rudolf Bing told the audience on her behalf. A month later she tried again and sang the program, complete with six encores, to tumultuous ovations, though her singing was shaky.

Almost 20 years later, she returned again to New York to sign copies of an authorized biography by Carlamaria Casanova, "Tebaldi: The Voice of an Angel" (Baskerville Publishers). A line of autograph-seekers stretched from the Met's gift shop across Lincoln Center Plaza and up Broadway.

Miss Tebaldi had a long and productive relationship with the Decca recording company (also called London Records) and left classic accounts of major roles in complete recordings of "Otello," "La Forza del Destino," "Andrea Chenier," "La Bohème," "Tosca," "Madama Butterfly" and "Il Trovatore," among many other works. Asked during that 1995 interview how she felt about her discography, she said, "I cry when I hear the records." She added: "Now I understand what happened during my performances. I feel the same thing. Not because I know I am Renata Tebaldi, but because I can be objective."