Review of Rossini

There are many interesting things about this delightful biopic of the most delightful of Italian composers, played by Nino Besozzi, whose likeness with the composer is strikingly fortunate. His future wife and main primadonna Isabella Colbran, singing most of his female leading parts, is played by Paola Barboni, who also is just about perfect. There are various other prominent characters, the king is splendid, and also Paganini shows a great likeness to reality. There are marvellous theatre scenes from his major operas, both behind stage and among the turbulent audience; but perhaps the most remarkable matter about this film is that it was made in the middle of the war in the most difficult year 1942, of which you notice nothing in the film - it is clinically free from fascism or any politics. Rossini remains the most flippantly spiritual of composers, he became the richest of them all and was a tremendous success all the way - until his primadonna and wife lost her voice and he lost his zest completely, also after his mother's death. After his last opera "William Tell" he was practically silent for almost 40 years until his death, with only very few extra compositions (like "Stabat Mater" and "Messe Solennelle"), which show however that he was still a supreme master - he called his last masterworks his "sins of old age".

Most of the film shows Naples and Rome, but towards the end Rossini also celebrates triumphs in Vienna, where (after his most exuberant overture) he meets Beethoven, in which moment the film turns solemn. For the first time there is other music than Rossini's, and its the second movement of Beethoven's seventh symphony, which is played in full, giving the Beethoven scene a haunting character, especially as the weather is rainy and bleak. Then we move to Paris, where Isabella loses her voice, and the film ends almost like a Requiem. It's a great film, a splendid homage to the composer, allowing in full music to justly play the leading part.