Anthology comedy/romance film

The famous composer's life and his career. His love story with Isabella Colbran, the soprano who was to become his wife and the singer in all his operas up to the unfortunate day she lost her voice.

Non-musical account of Puccini's opera: Tosca and Cavaradossi are in love, but the tyrant Scarpia desires Tosca and oppresses Cavaradossi who is fighting for freedom.

This tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto's beautiful daughter Gilda. The opera's original title, La maledizione (The Curse), refers to the curse placed on both the Duke and Rigoletto by a courtier whose daughter had been seduced by the Duke with Rigoletto's encouragement. The curse comes to fruition when Gilda likewise falls in love with the Duke and eventually sacrifices her life to save him from the assassins hired by her father.

Italian filmmaker Carmine Gallone was still in his "operetta" mode when he helmed 1938's Il Sogno di Butterfly (Dream of the Butterfly) Maria Cebotari plays opera diva Rosa Belloni, currently starring in a production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. The plot thickens when Rosa's backstage life begins to mirror the travails of the character she is portraying. The climax comes when Harry Peters (Fosco Giachetti), the American father of Rosa's illegitimate child, returns after four years with his new wife in tow, leading inexorably to a doleful ending both on- and offstage. Critics complained about the substandard photography in Il Sogno di Butterfly, but this might have been due to poor laboratory work.

Old fashioned opera adaptation: A feisty and free spirited woman of the Tyrol withdraws to a mountain peak when she is separated from the man she loves. When he later attempts to rejoin her, disaster results.

A film adaptation of Gaetano Donizetti's famous opera from 1835. Lucia is forced by her brother to marry for political reasons. Her fiancé reacts very badly and curses her. Lucia goes mad and her fiancé kills himself.

This story took place during World War II. A group of Italians living in London are raising funds to rebuild a Catholic cathedral that was bombed by the Nazis. To this end, they organized a concert, the proceeds of which would go toward the construction. The project was led by journalist Carlo Scala. He faced and overcame many difficulties in organizing the event, but he handled them with honor, and the performance by leading Italian singers took place. He was assisted in this by the incomparable Dora Scala.

The great Italian opera composer recalls his eventful life on his deathbed: his childhood in Busseto, his studies in Milan, his first opera "Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio", the death of his wife and his children killed by smallpox.

The young Chiaretta has joined, against the will of her family, a theater company in the magazine in the hope of being able to sing on the stage. Her fiancé chases her trying to make her change her mind and bring her home.

In Naples, a local composer falls in love with an American tourist.

Called to perform at the Scala, a young baritone begins a transatlantic romance with a famous pianist. The singer, having been skewered by a critic after his last performance in Milan, attempts to find a way to win over the audience and the critics, while wooing his love interest.

Two little angels, a boy and a girl, come down on earth to choose their parents prior to birth. They choose the daughter of a retired general as their future mother and an opera singer as their dad. But making the two chosen ones meet, fall in love and marry will prove to be anything but easy.

Based on Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci. The film recounts the tragedy of Canio, the lead clown (or pagliaccio in Italian) in a commedia dell'arte troupe, his wife Nedda, and her lover, Silvio. When Nedda spurns the advances of Tonio, another player in the troupe, he tells Canio about Nedda's betrayal. In a jealous rage Canio murders both Nedda and Silvio. The only actor in the cast who also sang his role was the celebrated Italian baritone, Tito Gobbi, but the film is largely very faithful to its source material, presenting the opera nearly complete.

A romance between two temperamental singing stars. Highlights include a lengthy selection from Faust, with Gigli making a most impressive Mephistopheles. The plot takes a melodramatic turn towards the climax, with the lives of the characters mirrored in their on-stage behavior. Director Carmine Gallone was something of an expert in the field of filmed opera, as witness his Tosca, Rigoletto and Il Trovatore.

Nemorino is hopelessly in love with Adina but she is attracted to a dashing captain.

A courtesan sacrifices her relationship with a youthful admirer after the man's father pleads with her. Adapted from Giuseppe Verdi's 1853 opera in the three acts "La Traviata".

Martha Eggerth heads the cast of Casta Diva, but the central character is famed Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini, here played by American actor Phillips Holmes. Paying but scant attention the facts, the film concentrates on Bellini's colorful love life. Evidently the film went through several rewriting processes, as witness the curious performances of Donald Calthrop and Arthur Margetson, whose characters do complete about-faces halfway through the story. Amidst so many British accents, Martha Eggerth's Polish intonations seem out of place, but she photographs beautifully and sings quite well. Casta Diva was attractively filmed on location in Naples. Not to be confused with the 1954 remake (by Gallone himself) or to the English language version "The Divine Spark" (also directed by Gallone and starred by Eggerth).

An Italian comedy from 1943.

In order to encourage the young maestro Vernieri not to break down after the first failures, the director of the theater "La Scala" in Milan tells two significant episodes concerning the theater.

Canio and his Comedia dell'Arte troupe tour Italy. His wife Nedda meets a young cadet and they plan to elope. He tries to leave her when he finds how important she is for his husband, but a rejected trouper interferes. As jealous Canio suspects the truth the tragedy approaches. The film was partly made in Ufacolor.

Released a few months after the Italian The Passion According to St. Mathew, this Austrian film is, like the earlier effort, based on a theatre piece. But whereas the Italian picture was inspired by Bach's oratorio, St. Mathew's Passion is a filmed record of a newly commissioned State Burgtheatre production. Actor Raoul Aslan movingly recites the biblical story of the last days of Christ, while the Philharmonic Orchestra of Vienna underscores his words. Director Ernst Marischka breaks up the visual monotony of the proceeding by utilizing a montage of photographs and paintings of the Middle Eastern regions where the original story took place. Reviewers felt that St. Mathew's Passion should have been promoted as a documentary rather than a dramatic feature.

Azucena, daughter of a Gypsy burnt at the stake, to take her revenge kidnaps one of the children of Count de Luna and raises him in secret as her own.

In this short directed by Pietro Francisci, later known for hit swords-and-sandals titles such as 1958’s “Hercules” starring Steve Reeves, Lollobrigida appears to sing (she may have been dubbed) Italian folk song “Stornellata Romana.”

The monotonous life of a bourgeois family is disturbed by the announcement of the imminent return from America of Mr. Lohengrin, who had left Italy years earlier, leaving behind the reputation of being an irresistible womanizer. Lohengrin's cousin, worried about the stability of his marriage, convinces some relatives who live in the countryside to welcome the dreaded guest into their home and then, to avoid meeting him, leaves. Meanwhile, in the country house everyone eagerly awaits Lohengrin, and envy and spite are unleashed during the wait. In particular, while the young landlady prepares the house, the woman's husband begins to be tormented by jealousy. But the arrival of the long-awaited guest will be a huge disappointment for everyone: the once seductive man is now just an aged, with glasses and a prominent belly.

After his plane makes an emergency landing, a kidnapped millionaire assumes the identity of a poor man.

1949 movie version of the Rossini opera

Goethe's drama and Gounod's opera "Faust" is treated here like a movie rather than the usual photographed-opera from a stage method. Faust is a man who sells his soul to Mephistopheles in exchange for eternal youth, and the latter, with guileful glee, leads Faust to disaster along the paths of pleasure. Marguerite falls in love with Faust, and suffers as a consequence.

A famous tenor has a car accident and asks the owner of a pharmacy for hospitality. The pharmacist’s wife is fascinated by the singer and follows him to Rome. Hovewer, she is sent back home.

A crafty barber acts as a go-between for a count in disguise and rescues Rosina from marriage with her guardian. An operatic comedy.

A short celebratory film, the only moving images that have ever portrayed the celebrated composer. Giacomo Puccini enjoys his residence in Torre del Lago: he walks in the garden, pinning a fresh rose in his buttonhole. He plays the piano and composes, whizzes by in a motorboat, receives the mail and chats with the villagers, and finally goes duck hunting.

A musical short based on Bernardo Pasquini's Arietta antica. The film debut of Lia Franca.