Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #96447 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-08-10
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Classical, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 107 minutes

Customer Reviews

Interesting Document
This DVD is for the people who are interested in studying the early career of Franco Corelli. Singing-wise, it is a good production, with Maria Caniglia singing some beautiful phrases with a biting technique, which is very interesting, especially in the middle and lower registers, but with harsher high notes, and with a decent if not great Scarpia by Gian Giacomo Guelfi.

And with a very young Franco Corelli, still on his way up, but already worth listening to carefully and replaying what he sings, as he renders the strong personality of the character pretty impressively with his voice. He looks very youthful, almost like a kid, which is not bad, considering how utterly naive Cavaradossi is in his idealism.

Visually, the movie appears to have been conceived for cinemascope or wide screen, which probably explains the director's preference for very long shots and his very little use of close-ups. The bad thing is that on television the acting is barely visible. Sometimes this is good, though, because much of the acting is basically not great, worst of all being Franca Duval. But how can an actor/actress do their job if their faces are not shown properly?

This movie is also an opportunity to see Corelli's brother, Aldo Relli, as Sciarrone, also shown from a very great distance, but still visible: very stylish, he seems to have looked good.

One last comment: the chorus at the beginning of Act 2 is too loud, making it difficult to focus on the altercation between Cavaradossi and Scarpia; also, some high notes both of voices and in the orchestra are weak throughout the movie. Perhaps these and some other minor distortions are caused by the old recording technology or have occurred in the digitalizing process.

VAI Provides Wonderful Treasures but.....
As a person who believes that there is Franco Corelli and then there are some opera singers I was thrilled when I found that VAI had come out with this 1956 RAI film. I have copies of the Bel Canto Society Tosca videos that are magnificent but after all they aren't DVD's. The first copy of the DVD sent to me from VAI was damaged - seemingly a production flaw. Their customer service was marvelous - with no questions at all they immediately sent me a replacement that plays perfectly.

The picture is wonderful considering VAI was still dealing with a source from 1956. The color and clarity are far better than on the VHS copies. The sound is wonderful but not noticeably better than on VHS but this is probably unavoidable.

Now we get to the reason for a missing star. The synchronization of sound and picture is far from close. I don't think this can be blamed on the lip-synching that must have been done as it is not nearly so noticeable on the VHS version. With that caveat I still have to recommend this DVD. It gives us one of opera's true treasures on the format we now all want. The problem is it also makes me want to upgrade my TV set and DVD player. - More, please, VAI.