Movie Time at the Opera

By Robert T. Jones

Long before movies had sound tracks, people were putting opera onto film. Carmen, Manon Lescaut, Thais, Tosca--all went their voiceless way before the primitive cameras. Even Caruso waved his arms and moved his mouth while the audience tried to believe silence was as golden as the great Enrico's top tones. After World War II, the Italians went in for opera movies in a big way. Often bulky prima donnas and bel canto stars sang for the mikes while prettier people pantomimed for the cameras, pretending that they were doing the singing. It rarely worked, although there was something to be said for hearing Renata Tebaldi's voice coming out of Sophia Loren's capacious rib cage. Most of these movies had limited exposure, and despite a few more recent star-oriented efforts (Traviata with Anna Moffo, for example), to the general public they seemed as boring as an aria da capo.

No Longer. Last week New York's Philharmonic Hall was midway through a festival of twelve operatic films, most of them new to the U.S. (Don Giovanni from the 1954 Salzburg Festival has been included for its historical value). Obviously, the producers and directors either have seen all the old efforts and learned from them or, more likely, have never seen any of them. All the festival productions are worthwhile purely as examples of filmed drama. Several of them are so good that they suggest opera may have as healthy a future on celluloid as on the boards.

The worst mistake made by the old films was dubbing. On the assumption that singers can't act, the dramatic assignments were given to actors who not only knew nothing about vocalism but frequently seemed to know even less about acting. When real singers were used, they were told that singing looked ugly and that they should behave as if they were talking. Singers embraced or smiled wetly at one another with barely parted lips while their voices screamed away at high Cs. It looked as incredible as it sounded.

The new movies at the festival are also dubbed, but by the same cast that does the acting. The dubbing seldom shows, for the performers are obviously giving full voice for the cameras. Throat muscles bulge, diaphragms pump, mouths shape themselves for vowels. It does not look ugly at all; it looks real, and often remarkably exciting.

In the best of the films--those originally produced for German television by Rolf Liebarmann and the Hamburg State Opera--there is an implicit and welcome admission of what opera can and films should not do. "Opera is the most stylized, artificial of the arts," says Liebermann. "We're transposing it into film, the most realistic medium. Our productions don't make a pretense of reality; they accept the basic unreality and take it from there." Expert film editing clarifies complicated ensembles. Hand-held cameras bring the audience into the midst of crowd scenes, pausing to take in important conversations. Die Meistersinger, the best film in the collection, is a case in point. Hans Sachs (magnificently performed by Giorgio Tozzi) delivers his long Wahnmonolog while the camera looks him square in the eye; Wagner does the rest. When visual action dominates, as in the Meistersinger riot scene, the camera is a participant in a bedlam of fists, heels, hurtling bodies and smashing furniture.

Fashion Conscious. There are, however, some errors of judgment and direction and the sound is often less than stereo fidelity. When Regina Resnik's Clytemnestra (in the Hamburg Elektra) is in full cry, the camera suddenly becomes fashion conscious: it stoops and meticulously inspects her hemline (floor length). In an otherwise masterful Cos`i fan Tutte, the camera focuses mostly on a collection of ambulatory bird cages, making nonsense of Ferrando's aria, Un' aura amoroso.

Artists come off differently under photographic inspection. Tenor Jon Vickers is a powerful stage actor, but he seems meek and calculated in Carmen and I Pagliacci. Raina Kabaivanska, a bland personality at the Met, emerges as a film actress of subtlety and range. Best of all is the Hamburg Opera's leading lady, American Arlene Saunders, who illuminates her roles with humor, and warm, emotional singing.

The finest of the opera films achieve theatrical effect by cinematic means. The Berlin Deutsche Oper's version of Hans Werner Henze's sardonic The Young Lord, for example, hits harder than would be possible in a stage production: In this grim fable, the citizens of a small town foolishly ape the eccentricities of what they believe to be a wealthy aristocrat; at the end they discover that the object of their idolatry is in fact a real ape. Stripped of pretense by the cruel joke, the people stare helplessly at the ape while the camera mercilessly moves from face to face. Henze's music provides the ammunition. It is the camera that delivers the coup de grace.

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