The Glory of Opera Films That Hit the Right Notes

Operas have always been rich sources for filmed entertainment, but truly great opera movies are rare. Los Angeles has an unusual opportunity this weekend to see on the big screen what probably are the best ever made.

I viewed thousands of opera films from all eras while researching my book “Opera on Screen,” and I never saw better. They combine the best of opera with the best of cinema, a difficult feat when the art forms are so different.

The operas are recognized masterpieces: Bizet’s “Carmen,” Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” and “Don Giovanni,” Verdi’s “La Traviata” and Puccini’s “La Boheme.”

The directors are masters of cinema: Ingmar Bergman, Joseph Losey, Francesco Rosi, Franco Zeffirelli and Luigi Comencini.

Likewise, the singers are the best in the world: Placido Domingo, Kiri Te Kanawa, Jose Carreras, Julia Migenes, Ruggero Raimondi, Teresa Stratas, Jose Van Dam and Barbara Hendricks. And the screening location itself looks like the set for Verdi’s “Aida,” the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, home of the American Cinematheque.

The idea of capturing opera on film, surprisingly, goes back to the beginning of cinema. Thomas Edison told the New York Times in 1893 that his intention was “to have such a happy combination of photography and electricity that a man can sit in his own parlor, see depicted upon a curtain the forms of the players in opera upon a distant stage and hear the voices of the singers.”

American filmmakers listened and immediately began to turn operas into films. The first opera film, a two-minute version of Donizetti’s “The Daughter of the Regiment,” was made in New York in July 1898. Hundreds of silent opera movies followed with music provided live by orchestras and pianists. Enrico Caruso starred in two movies and Met soprano Geraldine Farrar became a movie star when Cecil B. DeMille directed her in “Carmen” in 1916. The first sound era film of a whole opera was “Pagliacci,” filmed in 1931 on Long Island by Italian Americans of the San Carlo Grand Opera Company. Hollywood hired dozens of opera stars, but the filming of actual operas slowed. Max Ophuls’ film of Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride” was one of the few notable opera films of the 1930s.

The situation changed in the 1940s when the Italians began to film operas again and improved dramatically in 1951 when Gian Carlo Menotti filmed his opera “The Medium,” Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger created a movie version of Offenbach’s “The Tales of Hoffmann” and Mario Lanza starred in “The Great Caruso,” probably the most popular film about opera ever made.

*

Some of the best opera films were made possible by French producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier, who hired top directors and gave them big budgets. The consensus best film of an opera is his and director Rosi’s magnificent 1984 “Carmen,” which opens the Egyptian series. Rosi uses the spoken French dialogue of the original production to create a neo-realist-style opera film. Migenes is the free-loving Gypsy Carmen and her earthy, sensual personality is central, because she acts as well as she sings (she also is scheduled to attend the screening). Domingo plays her soldier lover Don Jose, a country boy with a potential for violence brought to the surface by Carmen. Raimondi is the grand, full-of-himself bullfighter Escamillo who entices Carmen away; Faith Esham is touching as Jose’s girl-from-back-home Micaela. Lorin Maazel conducts the National Orchestra of France with real sizzle, and Pasqualino De Santis’ cinematography does glorious justice to the music. “Carmen” is the leading literary source for movies, with more than 60 films based on the opera and the original Merimee story, and this is the finest. (It screens Friday at 8 p.m.)

Zeffirelli’s 1982 “La Traviata” is stunning visually and emotionally, with soprano Stratas as an utterly heartbreaking courtesan Violetta. Zeffirelli uses a clever conceit to frame the story, imagining it as a feverish memory by Violetta as she is dying. Numerous cinematic devices keep the narrative flowing, including complex flashbacks, mirror shots and intricate camera movements. The bravura rococo style is rightly romantic and exactly in keeping with Violetta’s recollections. Domingo is excellent as Alfredo, and Cornell MacNeil makes a convincing Germont. The film is beautifully photographed by Ennio Guarnieri, costumed by Piero Tosi and written and designed by Zeffirelli. James Levine conducts the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. (Saturday at 5:30 p.m.)

Comencini’s 1987 film “La Boheme” features American soprano Hendricks as a charming Mimi with her own ideas about how to meet men. She knows Rodolfo is alone in his garret room and initiates their romance by pretending her candle has gone out. Carreras sings the role of Rodolfo--although Luca Canonici is seen on screen--Angela Maria Blasi is Musetta, Gino Quilico is Marcello, Richard Cowan is Schaunard and Francesco Ellero D’Artegna is Colline. Armando Nannuzzi was cinematographer, James Conlon conducts the National Orchestra of France and Du Plantier produced. (Saturday at 8:30 p.m.)

Bergman’s 1974 “The Magic Flute” is also among the very best opera films. Bergman and Oscar-winning cinematographer Sven Nykvist shot it as an opera in performance in a mock-up of the 18th century Drottningholm Court Theatre. Bergman first shows us the audience, then focuses on a small girl in a delighted state of wonder. We see through her eyes as the fairy-tale opera unfolds and a prince is asked by a queen to rescue a princess from an evil wizard. Lines of the libretto occasionally descend from the heavens, and trios of women and children sing them charmingly. Indeed, almost everything in the film is charming, including the idea that Princess Pamina is the daughter of the wizard Sarastro and his arch-enemy the Queen of the Night. The opera is sung in Swedish by relatively unknown singers, but this hardly seems to matter. Hakan Hagegard (who became well known after this film) is Papageno, Josef Kostlinger is Tamino, Irma Urrila is Pamina, Elisabeth Erikson is Papagena, Birgit Nordin is the Queen of the Night, Ulrik Cold is Sarastro and Ragnar Ulfung is Monostatos. Eric Ericson conducts the Swedish State Broadcasting Network Symphony. (Sunday at 5 p.m.)

*

The other great Mozart opera movie is Losey’s 1978 “Don Giovanni,” shot on location in Vicenza near Venice with some unusual visual concepts, including a mysterious non-singing valet in black always seen with the Don. The film opens at a glass factory with the great seducer on a visit with Donna Anna. The Catalogue aria is a visual joke with the catalogue seen as a scroll that unrolls down the stairs as Leporello names all the women Giovanni has seduced. Raimondi is a cynical but charming Don Giovanni, matched in duplicity by Van Dam as Leporello. Te Kanawa is Donna Elvira and most convincing as a wronged woman determined on vengeance. Edda Moser is equally vengeful as Donna Anna; Teresa Berganza is a natural Zerlina. John Macurdy is a gruff Commendatore, Kenneth Riegel a wimpy Don Ottavio and Malcolm King a put-upon Masetto. The music is wonderfully played by the Paris Opera Orchestra, conducted by Maazel. Gerry Fisher and Carlo Poletti were the cinematographers. Du Plantier produced. (Sunday at 7:45 p.m.)

*

* Ken Wlaschin is author of “Opera on Screen” and several other books on opera and film.