I saw this movie in my teen years and I enjoyed it enormously. I was an enthusiast of Italian opera, and here was an unbelievable pageantry with all the great names of the nineteenth century belcanto from Rossini to Puccini passing through Verdi, impersonated by actors like Marcello Mastroianni and Micheline Presle, Paolo Stoppa and Danièle Delorme, Roland Alexandre and Märta Torén, Maurice Ronet and Myriam Bru, Andrea Checchi (to name just a very few from a huge cast), supported by such golden voices as Mario Del Monaco or Renata Tebaldi. It was a blockbuster, and I was young and this was what I loved, such a great spectacle with great historical names, great cast, great colors and great music. A bit of humor now and then, a bit of melodrama here and there, love permeating everything .... and glorious belcanto. And Carmine Galone, the director, knew how to make a blockbuster.
I kept the memory of this movie through the years, and I wanted to watch it again. I had this possibility today. Traveling on a time machine to see how it was everything on your past, your universe of those times, and your own selfie. To see it with your eyes from now. Of course it shows its age this Casa Ricordi from 1954, and I am showing my age, too. But I watched it with joy, a very old friend from sixty years ago.
