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From: rjw@ptsfc.UUCP (Rod Williams)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: movie adaptations of Mozart operas
Message-ID: <514@ptsfc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 30-Jan-86 20:39:45 EST
Article-I.D.: ptsfc.514
Posted: Thu Jan 30 20:39:45 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 31-Jan-86 19:55:45 EST
References: <89@ucdavis.UUCP> <1611@mtgzz.UUCP>
Reply-To: rjw@ptsfc.UUCP (Rod Williams)
Organization: Pacific Bell
Lines: 30

So far, nobody has mentioned Joseph Losey's rather idiosyncratic film
of "Don Giovanni", which appeared to generally savage reviews about
four years ago (I loved it, saw it twice and bought the record, but
what do I know?).

It featured Ruggiero Raimondi , Kiri Te Kanawa, Edda Moser, Jose Van Dam,
Teresa Berganza, John MacCurdy and I-can't-remember-the-tenor. The music
was conducted by Lorin Maazel (Orchestre National de Paris?).

It was gorgeous to look at and the singing was magnificent. One of the
reasons the critics hated it was that it took a very stern, moralistic
approach to the story - staged productions tend to play it more light-
heartedly, almost as a farce. They also hated the fact that the music
and singing were studio-recorded first and the singers lip-synched to
it during filming - personally, I think that was preferable to seeing
the facial gyrations singers must go through in monstrous close-up.

Losey also introduced an extraneous, though non-speaking-or-singing
character into the action - a mysterious valet, dressed in black, whose
rather sinister appearances whenever Don G was up to no good suggested
that he may have been an agent of the Don's eventual doom.

As I said, I loved it - it's been about three years since I saw it last,
but it remains very vivid in my memory. It's shown every now and again
in repertory cinemas in San Francisco, by the way.
-- 

 rod williams | {ihnp4,dual}!ptsfa!ptsfc!rjw
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 pacific bell |  san ramon  |  california