In 1981 she sang with Alfredo Kraus for the first time in a new role, Manon in Massenet’s opera. Those performances at the Rome Opera had a triumphant reception, just as the inauguration of the 1981-’82 roman season with Donizetti’s Fausta. It was a veritable resurrection of a score which had been forgotten after Giuditta Pasta had interpreted it in 1833. Raina’s triumph in this difficult role - which she had prepared by going to the “Donizetti Society”in London and by being coached in the part by musicologist Rodolfo Celletti – was the prelude to many interpretation of classical roles.

There were productions of Spontini ‘s La vestale ( Genoa 1984), which had been a Ponselle and Callas warhorse, of Gluck’s Armide ( Bologna 1984), which caused the admiration of the French critics for her perfect dramatic diction. They were climaxed by Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux di Donizetti ( Rome 1988 and Genoa 1993). The redoutable Queen Elizabeth, harsh and threatening in the first two acts, underwent an amazingly pathetic catharsis in the final scene.

At the same time Kabaivanska never abandoned the twoManons, Adriana and Francesca: she kept singing them in the major theatres, as well as singing more than four hundred Toscas and Butterflies, with impeccable musicianship, cool elegance and tragic impact. In 1978, 1983 and 1997 she presented her subtle, intimate interpretation of Madama Butterfly in a giant open-air venue such as the Arena inearning deafening ovations.

Anticipating a much-trumpetend production of the ‘90’es, Raina has filmed Tosca in its authentic places – the church of S.Andrea della Valle, the Farnese palace and the Castle of S. Angelo – with Placido Domingo, already in 1979. Bringing her Adriana Lecouvreur to Montecarlo, Marseilles, Muenchen,, Oviedo and Lisbon, she has restored international celebrity ro this opera, which had lost it.