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.
