Mad About Opera

Robert Talbot, an American millionaire, arrives early for his annual vacation at his luxurious Italian villa. His long-time girlfriend Lisa has given up waiting for him and has decided to marry another man. Meanwhile, his sneaky business associate Maurice secretly misappropriates the villa as a hotel while Talbot is away. The current guests of the "hotel" are a group of young American girls.

A group of con artists stake their claim on a bogus uranium mine.

This Italian film version of Verdi's opera stars Sophia Loren on the screen, with Renata Tebaldi providing the vocals.

In a small village two twin brothers are of opposite characters. One is mayor of the town, gruff and precise. The other is totally different from his brother and loves the good life and beautiful women.

A stellar cast brings Puccini’s spellbinding opera to life, seizing every opportunity to thrill the audience. Luciano Pavarotti is Cavaradossi, the painter and political revolutionary in love with the beautiful and famous singer Tosca (the riveting Shirley Verrett). Rome’s diabolical chief of police, Baron Scarpia (Cornell MacNeil), wants Tosca for himself—but he underestimates the fury of a woman in love. With torture, murder, and a suicide in its final moments, Tosca packs more dramatic punches than most other operas—and this classic telecast captures them all. James Conlon conducts in a production by the incomparable Tito Gobbi, one of the great Scarpias of the 20th century.

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.

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.

Two American sailors, Fiorello and Jimmy are slugged while sight-seeing in Rome and, together, they dream they are back in Rome in the days of Nero.

Peppino, a slow-witted local villager of the Italian resort town of Amalfi, is bribed to impersonate famed rock and roll star Adriano Celentano for autographs and personal appearances. While Celentano tries to romance Emanuela Mazzolani, the daughter of a well-to-do resident who dissaproves of the union between his daughter and the man he thinks of as a "punk", Peppino, unaware of the true nature of his job to impersonate Celentano, tries to deal with his girlfriend's newborn baby which gets switched around between him and Celentano.

Six episodes (adapted from as many short stories: Gozzano, D'Annunzio, Guido Rocca, Marino Moretti, Alba de Céspedes and Oreste Biancoli), six love stories set in different moments in italian recent history.

Giuseppe Verdi Pier Miranda Ferraro Tito Gobbi Laura Londi

Two fellow soldiers fight for the love of the same girl, are constantly picked on by the older soldiers about to be discharged and are involved in the staging of a show in the military barracks.

Brigadier Le Gouce and Private Flicot lose their horses during a campaign in Italy. To avoid looking ridiculous, the two hussars cross the country in search of their mounts. But when they are mistaken for deserters, their regiment gives chase.

It is a biopic portraying the life of the composer Franz Schubert.

The life and loves of great composer Giuseppe Verdi are played against a background of the great operas of the 19th Century. A tender love story of his successful and turbulent life, with more than 20 excerpts from his acclaimed operas.

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.

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.

An Italian comedy from 1943.

The plans of a publicity agent to put on a charity concert are nearly wrecked by a lawyer who wants to take over a restaurant, but the situation is saved by local co-operation.

The owner of a cosmetics factory has made a contract with Radio Sibilla for the transmission of an evening program in which the products of his company are advertised.

A woman takes her ill husband's place in a smuggling ring and steals the heart of his partner.

During the fascist era, Adriana a beautiful young model, becomes a prostitute after a love affair gone wrong. She meets Mino, a partisan who falls in love with her and wants to redeem her.

In 1482 Paris, Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, becomes infatuated by the beauty of Esmeralda, a young Romani girl. The hunchback Quasimodo, Frollo's protégé and bell-ringer of Notre Dame, lives in peace among the bells in the heights of the immense cathedral until he's involved by the twisted magistrate in his malicious plans to free himself from Esmeralda's alleged spell, which he believes to be the Devil's work.

A U.S. military troop takes command of a band of Burmese guerillas during World War II.

Near death, King David has a vision that his poet son, Solomon, should succeed him, rather than hot-headed Adonijah. Furious, Adonijah departs the court, swearing he will become king. Other rulers are concerned that Solomon's benevolent rule and interest in monotheism will threaten their tyrannical, polytheistic kingdoms. The Queen of Sheba makes an agreement with the Egyptian pharaoh to corrupt Solomon for their mutual benefit.

Biggest Hollywood stars in Italy from 1950 to 1970 through Cinecittà Luce's archives.

Among others, Ernesto returns to Turin after the war from a German POW camp; his household destroyed and family deceased, he tries making an honest living.

Pauline Bonaparte, sister of the famous Napoleon, embarks on a series of amourous escapades, including an engagement to the Conventionnel Fréron; her relationship with the comté de Canouville; and her marriage to General Leclerc, whom she follows to Saint-Domingue.

A pair of men try to perform the dangerous "triple" in their trapeze act. Problems arise when the duo is made into a trio following the addition of a sexy female performer.

This revealing documentary from director Philippe Kohly examines the storied life of renowned soprano Maria Callas, from her troubled childhood in New York City to her scandal-laden but triumphant international career in opera. Featuring archival interviews with Callas herself and footage of contemporaries such as her lover Aristotle Onassis, this celebration of "La Divina" pays tribute to her enduring legacy some three decades after her death.

After an astrologer has foretold him he will die at an early age if he does not avoid a romantic entanglement, Alessandro Stradella, a well-known composer decides to leave Rome for the North of Italy. Written by Guy Bellinger

Alberto Serrani, a mining engineer, meets doctor's daughter Marina, sweet and simple, and the notorious and frivolous Clara who falls for him immediately.

Vicky de Berlin, a female gangster, haunted by wartime memories , runs a floating night-club in Brussel. Marcel, her partner and lover, is in charge of the banknotes forgery manufacture concealed in the bottom of the boat. He decides to rob the Bank of Belgium and exchange a huge sum of counterfeit money for its equivalent in genuine one. But things get complicated when Yoko, the she leader of another gang and her lover The Bug interfere...

An opera singer hides an American soldier in his house in Nazi-occupied Rome.

Soprano Anna Moffo stars as winsome courtesan Violetta Valery -- who tries to protect her rash lover, Alfredo, even if it means lying and breaking his heart -- in this 1968 version of composer Giuseppe Verdi's masterpiece. Recorded at the Rome Opera House with renowned conductor Giuseppe Patanè leading the orchestra and chorus, the production also stars Gino Bechi as Alfredo's angst-ridden father.

A nasty Rome police chief circa 1800 forces the lover of a painter, suspected of harboring a political prisoner, to reveal the hiding place and to yield to his power and lust.