Tragödie einer Liebe

This is actually a masterpiece in its mixture of opera and reality, and for us today it is a major treat to see one of the great world tenors (Beniamino Gigli) alive on screen in a part of almost himself (a world tenor) and playing it well, as it involves great human involvement with other peolple, especially his ailing daughter, for whom he gives up his career and stops singing to live only for her, after her broken heart when she has broken up with her one suitor, who proved to have another woman since five years and wasting everything on gambling as well. Opera and realism are intermixed throughout the film with great convincing virtuoso expertise, so it is both a great opera film (for Benjamin Gigli's sake) and a great human drama, touching on neorelism and at least verism. The universal compassion with the ailing girl is irresistible, she is too convincing in all her frailty and understandable incurable love, and the cinematography is also impressing, from Venice in summer to a very wintry Rome with lots of beautiful Italy in between. One of the sensations in the film is that Beniamino Gigli actually sings Wagner, but in Italian - and suddenly Wagner's music becomes better. His music remains difficult and strained all the same, but Italian at least makes it sound better. The film is of great interest above all to opera fans, as you can study in detail his manner of singing, with his small mouth he actually seems to make no effort at all, while his big head gives him perfect resonance. It is a unique film for its expert composition in mixing up opera and hard core reality in a perfectly harmonized blend, and this film certainly must not be forgotten.

Unlike many of the other films made with operatic tenor Beniamino Gigli, such as "Ave Maria" and "Marionette," this movie focuses to a greater degree on the lives of other characters, with Gigli's role relegated to a secondary, though important, status. Here he is the operatic tenor father Riccardi of daughter, Claudia, who abandons her fiancé' Alberto when she learns he is interested in rekindling a romance with a former flame. The guy then gambles away a ton of money and falls into the clutches of an unscrupulous money-lender. Loving the man as much as she does, Claudia gives him money to pay his debt, even as she is dying from an illness.

The last scene of the film is structured as a heavy-handed parallel between the opera "La Bohème", as Riccardi sings Rodolfo, comforting his dying Mimì at the same time Alberto, in regret for his actions, comforts the dying Claudia and is "redeemed" as a consequence. It's a bit too much. The scene must have siphoned out liters of tears in the audience of wartime Italy where this movie was a considerable hit.

The best moments in the film, as might be expected, are those when we are simply able to enjoy Gigli's voice in selections of music from Richard Wagner, Giacomo Puccini, Francesco Cilea, Giuseppe Giordani (1745 - 1798, whose perennial salon-favorite, the concert aria "Caro mio ben," Gigli sings.) And while at it, it should be noted that the movie was made also in a German version, "Tragödie einer Liebe" with the same director and pretty much the same cast. This also explains the necessity of featuring some of Wagner's music. To my knowledge "Vertigine" was never released in the U.S., although it could have played ethnic houses. Video copies can be found in Italy and other places.

The direction by Guido Brignone is adequate to the task. The title "Vertigine" means "dizziness" or "vertigo" and must refer to the quality of Claudia's love as well as being a symptom of her illness.