Product Details

• Actors: Stefan Zucker, Iris Adami Corradetti, Fedora Barbieri, Anita Cerquetti, Gina Cigna
• Directors: Jan Schmidt-Garre
• Writers: Jan Schmidt-Garre
• Producers: Jan Schmidt-Garre
• Format: Classical, NTSC
• Language: English, Italian
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Bel Canto Society
• VHS Release Date: February 23, 1999
• Run Time: 96 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305332800
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #386,837 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Toronto Star, John Terauds, June 2008

Obsessive fandom only makes sense to those who share in the passion, be it for comic books, gaming, Star Trek - or opera.

Nothing in the live performing arts generates the slavish devotion as opera and its stars.

German filmmaker Jan Schmidt-Garre, now 45, specializes in classical music.

His only notable success so far has been Opera Fanatic. The oddball film made the festival rounds starting in 1999 and then went into hiding - until now.

This 90-minute documentary follows eccentric New Yorker Stefan Zucker (founder of the Bel Canto Society and, in the 1980s, host of a local Saturday-night radio show called Opera Fanatic) as he seeks out Italian divas who ruled opera stages in the 1940s and '50s.

The names - Iris Adami Corradetti, Fedora Barbieri, Anita Cerquetti, Gina Cigna, Gigliola Frazzoni, Carla Gavazzi, Leyla Gencer, Magda Olivero, Marcella Pobbe and Giulietta Simionato - may not mean much to anyone younger than 60 but, in their day, these sopranos and mezzos represented the pinnacle of their art in Italy.

We get ghostly black-and-white footage from early TV broadcasts mated to excellently remastered audio to show us who these divas were in their day.

We also get them in their faded hauteur as Zucker asks them uncomfortably silly questions in heavily accented, mewling Italian. Zucker is squirm-inducing, but there is something endearing about the singers as they testify to the enduring values of their art.

Schmidt-Garre's doc-within-a-doc style is intrusive, especially when he switches video sources to make the point.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great diva footage, but interviewer is too self-indulgent., September 28, 1999

By 

A Minnesota Jew (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Opera Fanatic: Stefan And The Divas [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The divas' comments, interspersed with judicious video excerpts of them in performance, reveal fascinating artistic and personal qualities. Many gems here. However, too much time is wasted on Stefan Zucker's comic (and sometimes tasteless) shtick. He has so much insight to offer, it's a shame the directorial choices were so frivolous.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This guy continues the most horrible stereotype, December 13, 2001

By 

John Nygro (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Opera Fanatic: Stefan And The Divas [VHS] (VHS Tape)

As I watched this video, I become more and more disgusted at the behavior of this creature known as Stefan Zucker. He is a petty, affected fop who kept asking each of these talented women about whether or not they used "chest voice." These are women who have sung the greatest roles in opera. Of all the possibilities of WHAT to ask them, he's on some personal mission to validate whatever freudian motivation he has for proving the validity of his own mother's voice (or lack of it). So, he's a terrible interviewer. I've heard better enunciated Italian by first year language students. He's a creature with a HUGE ego, who thinks he actually has something to say about the gifted women he has interviewed. The best part of the video is the reaction of each of the singers as they have that "deer in the headlights" look, as if to say, "Can this THING be real." He is an embarassment to all men who love opera and have to fight the stereotyping that comes with that. That being said, the entertainment value of the tape is high--this tape is an excercise in the display of an ego which most small screens cannot contain.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Zucker is an embarassment, April 29, 2006

By 

Colin Harrison (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Opera Fanatic: Stefan And The Divas [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This film could have been a real treasure - had the interviewer been someone other than the intensely dislikable and (as an interviewer) utterly incompetent Stefan Zucker. The opportunity to interview these great divas was a rare one and, in most cases, Zucker just blew it, especially with Marcella Pobb?. Zucker asks the dumbest questions - like, "What was the highest note you ever sang?" He has some bizarre obsession with chest voice and asks most of the divas if they used it. Pobb? quite rightly throws him out of her apartment after he is foolish and impertinent enough to ask why she left the Met. (There was some unhappy love affair and obviously she wasn't going to discuss that, so why ask?)

Fedora Barbieri camps it up for the camera in an embarassing manner, making a fool of herself and Zucker at the same time. Zucker asks her a question about having sex with women in her dressing room before going on stage. But Barbieri is too thrilled with all the attention to slap him and chuck him out like Pobb? did. One wonders who has the bigger ego and who is more excited to be on camera.

The entire enterprise is an ego trip for Zucker. The title, "Stefan and the Divas," is misleading; this is mostly about Stefan, and a more unappealing subject it is difficult to imagine.

Still, there are wonderful moments with Anita Cerquetti, Giulietta Simionato, Leyla Gencer and Carla Gavazzi, when Zucker shuts up and we get a glimpse of these great singers. The segment with the ancient Gina Cigna is a disappointment just because she is so old and feeble and can hardly string two words together. One of the best moments is when Zucker tells Gencer that Barbieri and Simionato deny ever using chest voice. She looks incredulous, rolls her eyes and asks, "Questo di LORO?" ("This from THEM?") For these, and for the clips of the great Magda Olivero, the video is worth having - if you can stomach Zucker's prissy falsetto, foolish posturing, dumb questions, and irritating manner. Like Pobb?, one wants to chuck him out.

What a waste.