Baritone Pasquale Amato as Napoleon in silent film Glorious Betsy - 1928
It was no accident that the great Neapolitan baritone Pasquale Amato was enlisted to play the role of Napoleon Bonaparte in this semi-historical film. He had created the role of Napoleon in Umberto Giordano’s opera Madame Sans-Gêne. While it is basically a silent film, Vitaphone talking sequences were recorded, but the sound disks seem now to be lost. Nevertheless Amato’s noble, natural bearing gives one a tantalizing hint of his stage persona.
When Glorious Betsy premiered, it was preceded by a Vitaphone short of Beniamino Gigli and Marion Talley singing “Verranno a te“ from Lucia di Lammermoor. The film has been lost, but the audio survives:
Interestingly Pasquale Amato’s only electrical recording and the only footage of him singing also a Vitaphone short whose film and sound disk have apparently survived but have never been restored and rejoined.
But stay tuned... I’ll be working on that as part of a larger undertaking soon :)
1 view
3433
1288
6 months ago 00:04:09 1
Don Pasquale: Terzet Norina/Malatesta/Don Pasquale (Act II) “Via da brava... Reggo appena”
6 months ago 00:29:44 3
[#20] Ailyn Perez in Paris – Opera for Peace – OPERAVISION NEXT GENERATION PODCAST