He won a Young Musician of the Year Award from the Greater London Arts Association in 1973 and received a Gulbenkian Fellowship in 1975.
At Covent Garden, Rendall sang the roles of the Italian singer in Der Rosenkavalier, Almaviva in The Barber of Seville, Des Grieux in Manon, Matteo in Arabella, Rodrigo in La donna del lago, Flamand in Capriccio, and the Duke in Rigoletto.
[2] Rendall was involved in a peculiar onstage incident in 1998 when he accidentally stabbed baritone Kimm Julian in the death scene of I Pagliacci during a rehearsal with the Florentine Opera.
The switchblade-style knife that the Milwaukee opera company used failed to collapse, and the baritone received a 3-inch-deep (76 mm) cut into his abdomen.
Rendall's recordings include Berlioz, Requiem in 1979 conducted by Michael Gielen, Maria Stuarda with Charles Mackerras and the English National Opera in 1982 and La rondine with Lorin Maazel and the London Symphony Orchestra in 1985.