Finally, it's extraordinary what gems you can stumble on sometimes. Bellini's opera La Sonnambula [The Sleep-walker] is only available in two versions on DVD, one with Eva Mei from 2005, the other with Anna Moffo from 1956. The 2005 version is described by one amazon.com reviewer as being an "ultra-dumb production" with a "hacked up score" (there are apparently many cuts). But the old black-and-white version is amazing! Made for Italian TV, it's Moffo's first recorded performance, and despite some wooden acting here and there it has something really magical about it.
Moffo is girlishly natural as the heroine Amina. You might expect that, in that Shakespeare-worshipping era, she'd have echoes of the sleep-walking Lady Macbeth, but in fact it's Ophelia she recalls as she scatters flowers in her distress — her lover Elvion thinks she's unfaithful because she's wandered while unconscious into another man's bedroom.
In some ways, though, it's the baritone Plinio Clabassi who steals the show as Rodolfo, the long-lost lord-of-the-manor. Watch the track early on where he arrives back home and begins to recognize the landmarks — Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni [I see you again, lovely places], one of Bellini's most heart-breaking melodies. Clabassi is very restrained, as if singing to himself, and behind him a mill-wheel endlessly turns — all our lives unstoppably running out. Two boys pass and nod to him just as he's remembering his own youth, now lost beyond recovery. And, in the corner of the frame, a worker takes his cap off, as if suddenly recognizing the returning lord.
It's a breath-taking sequence. The sound is surprisingly clear and even full, and Bellini fans — which in a perfect world would include everyone — should make sure they get hold of this fine historic recording.
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