This is an albeit at times melodramatic movie, but it is actually very well made, and worth seeing.
The story is remarkably realistic. Gigli, the greatest Italian lyric tenor of his day, plays exactly what he was: an older, overweight man. He has married a very beautiful and much younger woman and brought her to meet his elderly mother, played by Emma Grammatica, one of the great figures in the Italian legitimate theater for the previous several decades. The wife is pursued by an old flame, who is young and very handsome. She eventually succumbs to his urging to run away with him, as she does not love her husband, whom she evidently married for his money. And she is about to run away, when the elderly mother, discovering what is about to happen, goes to see the lover and pleads with him not to destroy her son's happiness. That scene enters into the melodramatic. The movie then moves to a hasty conclusion.
Some may like this movie for Gigli's singing. His voice really did not age, and he is very good in the popular Italian songs he sings here. His performance of excerpts from Otello is less convincing; he sings beautifully, but the beauty of the tone is more important than the drama of Verdi's magnificent music.
For me, the best things in this movie were the acting, by everyone involved, but in particular by the mother and some of the character parts, like the doctor. Gigli acquits himself quite respectably in a dramatic role. Some of the direction is innovative.
In short, you don't have to like opera to find merit in this movie. It's not a masterpiece, but neither is it a piece of fluff tossed off to feature an acting-challenged singer in a movie. In other words, it's a hell of a lot better than Yes Giorgio.
The story is remarkably realistic. Gigli, the greatest Italian lyric tenor of his day, plays exactly what he was: an older, overweight man. He has married a very beautiful and much younger woman and brought her to meet his elderly mother, played by Emma Grammatica, one of the great figures in the Italian legitimate theater for the previous several decades. The wife is pursued by an old flame, who is young and very handsome. She eventually succumbs to his urging to run away with him, as she does not love her husband, whom she evidently married for his money. And she is about to run away, when the elderly mother, discovering what is about to happen, goes to see the lover and pleads with him not to destroy her son's happiness. That scene enters into the melodramatic. The movie then moves to a hasty conclusion.
Some may like this movie for Gigli's singing. His voice really did not age, and he is very good in the popular Italian songs he sings here. His performance of excerpts from Otello is less convincing; he sings beautifully, but the beauty of the tone is more important than the drama of Verdi's magnificent music.
For me, the best things in this movie were the acting, by everyone involved, but in particular by the mother and some of the character parts, like the doctor. Gigli acquits himself quite respectably in a dramatic role. Some of the direction is innovative.
In short, you don't have to like opera to find merit in this movie. It's not a masterpiece, but neither is it a piece of fluff tossed off to feature an acting-challenged singer in a movie. In other words, it's a hell of a lot better than Yes Giorgio.
