Customer Reviews

La Serva Padrona [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

La Serva Padrona is the quintessential Opera Buffa. This film is pretty quirky, but its faults are excusable, provided you're familiar with the genre.

Firstly, the film is dubbed oddly. The soundtrack is a fairly poor recording of these great singers performing the opera, over which they lipsync. The effect is a bit disturbing at times, especially when the actors drop plates, slam doors, or run down stairs with no sound whatsoever. Nowadays, there would have been a foley artist to put all those sounds in over the top.

Secondly, the opera is padded heavily with incidental/ballet music, which I assume is Pergolesi, but who knows? My own personal score is no urtext, but seeing as how the opera was meant to be performed between two acts of another, more serious opera, I would guess that the whole thing runs a half an hour longer than it would normally.

Thirdly, if you don't speak Italian, (and a rather archaic Italian at that, I think) this version with no subtitles might be a bit tiresome to you. I watch it with my libretto in hand, and get a lot out of it. (the libretto can be obtained on line)

But don't get me wrong. The performers, especially Anna Moffo, are superb, albeit poorly recorded. The film relies heavily on mime, which adds an interesting commedia dell'arte quality to it that oddly fits quite well. The way the opera is filmed is like a cross between a Marx Brothers comedy and a Fellini film.

So if you know the opera, speak Italian, or just enjoy quirky foreign films like I do, this is the video for you.

Anna Moffo oozed charisma, charm, and sex appeal. To top it off, she had one of the most beautiful, voluptuous voices of her era. Here, in Pergolesi's innovative little gem, she struts her stuff in an unforgettably delicious way. Her instantly recognizable voice is at its most warmly luxuriant, and her performance as the seductive maid who gets her man is eye-popping and unsurpassed in alluring vocal splendor.

Pergolesi's historically important little gem is tuneful and diverting. With only two singing parts, it was originally an intermezzo to be performed between acts of opera seria. Anna Moffo brings Pergolesi's miniature to life with dramatic eloquence and humor. The camera loves her.

This is a performance that demands to be released on DVD. Moffo's heart-stopping beauty - physical as well as vocal - needs to be preserved as a unique cultural gift to music lovers. She is proof that sopranos can sing magnificently and look simply fantastic. She had to be one of the most ravishing opera stars of the century - expressive, dramatic, womanly, and just plain gorgeous.

As the Peter Hilliard points out, the opera is padded with music, but the padding comes before each act, so once the action starts, it is Paergolesi's score for La Serva Padrona. In addition, there are no subtitles, so I watched it with the libretto. I gave it five stars because of Paergolesi's music and Anna Moffo's performance. Paergolesi's music is amazing. His score for this opera is such a masterpiece that even though La Serva Padrona was written as an intermezzo, it had a profound influence on opera: jump starting opera buffa, influencing the classical period, and starting the Querelle des Bouffons in France. Moffo's performance is stunning. She is perfect for the role. Her voice is beautiful. In addition, she is so flawlessly pretty that everything she does is effortlessly sexy. Her extreme beauty makes her flirtatious behavior devastatingly magnetic. One glance, and you will be as enthralled with her as Uberto is. And speaking of Uberto, Paolo Montarsolo also gives an excellent performance. I wish they would put this out in DVD.