Moffo's Exquisite Butterfly.

Hands down, this is easily the finest thing I’ve ever seen from Moffo. With almost no prior professional opera experience, Moffo gives a performance that would be hard to equal in every area of this difficult role. Without a bit of Japanese-style make up, the young soprano moves, sings and creates a Cio Cio San that one cannot imagine bettered – at least I couldn’t (imagine it, that is!).

Both Un bel di and Che tua madre are stunning and punch up the dramatic without overdoing it. Speaking of not overdoing it, Moffo never oversings and, in fact, presents Un bel di almost as if whispering a confidence to Suzuki. The end of the love duet is capped beautifully with Moffo’s ecstatic heroine collapsing backwards into Pinkerton’s arms in as romantic a gesture as has been captured on film.

Opera films from the 50's could frequently be laughable (though endearingly so, but here, there are, in fact, a number of incredible directorial choices both innovative and illuminating, and I say this despite having seen more Butterfly’s than a net would hold (Annette who?) At the start of Act II, we see Butterfly lying on her stomach reading or writing something in Japanese characters, looking every bit the bored-out-of-her mind teenager. It lasts only a minute yet this simple action deepens and fleshes out this complex character, adding a slightly comical note while endearing this Cio Cio San to us even more, if such a thing were possible.

The most touching business occurs during Butterfly's all night vigil. At the very beginning of the Humming Chorus, Moff's Butterfly unwraps Pinkerton’s ring and, in a magnificent dumb show worthy of the finest silent screen actresses, Moffo’s face and features both glow and grow with womanly intensity until she is ultimately swept away by all emotion, yet keeps much of it inside and we somehow see and sense this in a performance both infinitely delicate yet powerful. Cio Cio sand then winds her way back to the bridge path on which she walked to her wedding, settles there and remains alone, away from her child and Suzuki. As Puccini's score signals the early morning sounds, the camera reveals Suzuki and Trouble, inside, still asleep on their cushions. Suzuki rises and as the fantastic score begins sweeping all away in joyous intensity, she begins running frantically, pulling up all of the shades in a sort of deconstruction of their home, flooding it with light exposing the myriad flowers still strewn wildly about. Stepping outside she discovers Butterfly, still kneeling on the bridge where she has spent the night alone, waiting. This is pure lump in your throat stuff, folks and Moffo - even not singing a note - is absolutely amazing. Another marvelous touch occurs at the end of the story, as we watch Butterfly crawling, those flowers to welcome Pinkerton caught up in her hair as she dies. Every gesture, every expression came off with a spontaneity from one who believed she was Cio Cio San. I certainly did.

Then there’s Pinkerton. Unfortunately, Renato Cioni, looking rather handsome and not embarrassing himself too terribly as an actor, offers the roughest voiced, most inelegantly phrased Pinkerton I can recall ever encountering. He sort of shrieks his music throughout with his high notes showing a particularly dreadful technique: a flattening out of vibrato creating an ungodly, painful white sound - the opposite of what anyone wants in Puccini, and certainly not right for Pinkerton. At least he looks good and the director keeps him away after the suicide.

Miti Truccato Pace takes the prize as perhaps the best acted and most sympathetic Suzukis to ever have sung the role, at least on screen. Marvelously touching and in perfect harmony with Moffo's heroine.

Afro Poli is a thoughtful, old school Sharpless, older than usual, but richly voiced and pointing up all of his music with actorly attention.

I've read many complaints about the picture and sound quality of this film which, quite frankly I don't understand. This was a live telecast from January 24, 1956 and we’re lucky to even have it around, in ANY quality, but honestly, I thought the transfer used by VAI to be outstanding. Still, people still seem to think it should look and sound like something from Lucasfilms!

Highly recommended.

Best Trovatore Ever!

Despite the grainy black and white picture, boxy audio (which peaks out at crescendos, varies wildly at times and can really become constricted during large ensembles), painted clouds, sets that range from starkly stagey yet realistic to "huh?", lip-synching that for most of the film is so good it looks as though the singers are really singing then degenerates into hit 'n miss, and some nasty cuts, the performances are simply astonishing. I hadn't planned on watching the entire thing, but once in the video machine I was along for the ride.

Leyla Gencer absolutely amazes me. If this woman were singing today she would be having productions of whatever she wanted, wherever she wanted and cast with whomever she wanted. Verdian style, ease of vocal production, ear ravishing mezzo voces and spot on high notes attacked with precision and clarity that had me doing something I hate to do - rewind whole sections and play them over and over again - so much so that the 2 hour video took me closer to 3 hours to watch. In Tacea la notte she throws in this soft, high Db that may be one of the most beautifully produced single notes I've ever heard.

(Note: I have to say, right here, that listening to Gencer today I was struck for the very first time at how similar a sound she shares with a singer I don't love but is known for her beautiful voice . . . (drum roll, please):  Renee Fleming. I'd never noticed before, but the weight of both voices is similar, especially when Fleming uses chest . . . I know, it sounds crazy, but I hear that for some reason.  BUT, Gencer is, of course, superior and capable of vocal "tricks" from the bel canto training, and the results can be extraordinary.  An example: Gencer seems to sing almost all of  Tu vedrai in chest voice - which blew my mind. I've never once thought of Fleming as a Leonore, and that will remain the case. It simply isn't in her (Desdemona is the extent of her Verdi for me.)

Mario Del Monaco is thrilling both in sound and looks, his acting right on the mark for Manrico. His high note (C?) at the end of  Di Geloso amor  is not nice and almost sounds as though tagged on after the fact . . . and maybe not even his (though I doubt that). But, all of his other high notes are definitely THERE and I was particularly affected by his ensemble work (who said he always had to show off? Del Monaco is here, most definitely a team player and the result is marvelous. The Pira (down a tone) has all the ping and brass one could want. He's just terrific. While his acting is excellent as Manrico, he does, I confess, in Act IV go way over the top. Manrico becomes all flashing dramatic eyes and Bela Lugosi poses, but these are NOT out of place at all here, as they seem to be genuinely Manric-an (yes, I just made that up. Sorry.)

Ettore Bastianini is, as ever for me, commanding, and in excellent - simply outstanding voice as DiLuna.  I simply cannot imagine a better foil to Del Monaco's Manrico.They are the team to beat in these roles and, at least for me, no one has done so yet.  I'll wait though.  

Plinio Clabassi opens the film with a fairly rousing Abbietta zingara,  and the men's chorus act and sing nobly.

There are touches of humour in the direction (notably in the Anvil Chorus) both intentional and seemingly unintentional, such as the gypsy who's mock anvil striking can't help but provoke a grin.

The great Fedora Barbieri in that costume, suffers as the most unfortunate victim of the wardrobe mistress. Despite her protestations in a recent Opera News article, Barbieri employs chest voice and does so splendidly. I remember she called it sometime else, but . . . it's still chest to me.  But never mind, because her Azucena has so much beauty throughout from start to finish. One of her most beautiful moments comes in that little trio toward the end: Gencer sustaining a lower note, Del Monaco buffering the middle as Barbieri enters ravishingly, on a higher sustained note returning to Ai nostri monti" That is the magic of Verdi right there, and it is the magic of singers who know what to do with this ravishing stuff.

Any director worth his salt should look at this and realize that "concept" is irrelevant, unnecessary and can - as we've seen in so many productions - sometimes stand directly in the way of telling a story. The power of the music, and singers who know how to react to it and to each other, are more than enough. The drama comes through in spades here, despite the perceived deficiencies of great visuals or expertly engineered modern sound.

I get more worked up by this film than perhaps any other opera movie I've seen. There are so many moments I jump up to my feet, and yell, cheering at the screen as though they can hear me. The ending, for once, felt as brutal and stomach churning as Verdi must have intended it to.

Oh, to experience a Trovatore like this in a house even once!