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Virginia Zeani as Violetta, filmed for a RAI television broadcast in her greatest role, which she sang, and lived, an estimated 648 times.
This is mimed, unfortunately not to a freshly recorded track but to a recording made some time before. In the interim her voice and interpretation had developed, which made instinctive synchronisation difficult. I know from having seen her in the opera house that it gives but a shadow of the vivid and stunning impression she made in live performance. Even so it is nevertheless impressive and genuinely moving..
Two complete live audio performances are avaiiable on this Channel. One is from an outdoor performance in Napoli and the other is of Zeani's extraordinary unrehearsed Covent Garden Debut, with many photographs and drawings.
For a long time the only truly live opera movie videos were from amateur recordings of "L'altra notte" and "Ritorna Vincitor" and a fragment of Aida plus the RAI Poulenc excerpt from "La Voix Humaine". A private movie of a concert performance in New York where she sang with piano Manon Lescaut's "Sola, perduta abbandonata" then surfaced and more recently some excerpts from La traviata and Tosca have appeared from Romanian television.
The traviata can be found on this channel where there is also a delightful movie of excerpts from "The Merry Widow" filmed live by RAI in 1963. This gives the best, genuine impression of Zeani's enchanting stage presence, and the VIlja aria hints at the intensity and poise she brought to Violetta's great aria "Ah, fors' e lui".