Aida *** (1953, Sophia Loren, Lois Maxwell, Luciano Della Marra) – Classic Movie Review 12,581

After Renata Tebaldi decided against playing Aida, Gina Lollobrigida also turned down the role, and then Sophia Loren was cast in her first leading role, in the 1953 Italian colour opera film Aida. And Lois Maxwell plays the evil Princess Amneris.

Director Clemente Fracassi’s 1953 Italian colour opera film Aida stars the lovely young Sophia Loren, who appears (though Renata Tebaldi sings) as Aida in Giuseppe Verdi’s beautiful opera about the captive and enslaved Ethiopian princess Aida loved by a young Egyptian officer Radamès (played by Luciano Della Marra, though Giuseppe Campora sings).

Aida is a campy, florid film, but with it is achieved with some genuine lurid style and a rather colourfully gothic sense of cinema, while the early Loren appearance adds importance. Both the film and Loren are spectacles to behold.

Lois Maxwell plays the evil Princess Amneris.

It is very unexpected, but pleasing to find Lois Maxwell, aka Miss Moneypenny in 14 Bond movies, in these exalted circumstances as the evil Princess Amneris (singing voice dubbed by Ebe Stignani). She is quite a sight for sore eyes too.

The film is very kitsch, jerky, poorly edited and badly cut from the original opera (and, if you are unlucky, also poorly dubbed in the international version). But there is some wonderful singing, with Tebaldi and Stegnani in very fine voice, and it is an incredibly lavish, glorious looking colour production on huge, quite astounding sets, so it is very watchable as an entertaining curiosity. It’s tricky to provide an actual performance while emoting to opera recordings, but Sophia Loren, Lois Maxwell and Luciano Della Marra all manage to do it quite successfully. Italian operatic baritone Gino Bechi (Amonasro) and Italian operatic bass Giulio Neri (Ramfis ) also sing impressively on the soundtrack.

Despite all the careless seeming hacks into Verdi’s opera, the awful voice-over to clue viewers into the plot (narrator Guido Pannain introduces the scenes), the silly, mind-boggling ballet scenes, and various wilfully odd decisions (inexplicably it ends with Amneris and not the lovers), it is still quite a pleasure to enjoy. The cinematography, the production design and the costume design are all quite something to behold. Unfortunately, it runs only 95 minutes, and Verdi’s opera suffers from being crammed into this running time. Yes, Verdi light. But Verdi’s music is still there, at least some of it, though just excerpts.

It is produced by Gregor Rabinovitch and Federico Teti. Fracassi, Carlo Castelli, Anna Gobbi and Giorgio Salviucci base the screenplay on the libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. The cinematography is by Piero Portalupi, the production design is by Flavio Mogherini, and the costume design is by Maria De Matteis. The RAI National Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Giuseppe Morelli.

The ballet is choreographed by Margarete Wallmann [Margherita Walmann]. Yvette Chauviré and Léonide Massine are the dancers with the Rome Opera Ballet.

The main cast are Character Actor  Sophia Loren as Aida (singing-voice double Renata Tebaldi), Lois Maxwell as Amneris (singing-voice double Ebe Stignani) Luciano Della Marra as Radamès (singing-voice double Giuseppe Campora), Afro Poli as Amonasro (singing-voice double Gino Bechi) and Antonio Cassinelli as Ramfis (singing-voice double Giulio Neri).

Release dates: 23 October 1953 (Italy) and 8 October 1954 (US).

It was re-released in Italy on 22 June 2019 in a 4K restored version (Il Cinema Ritrovato).

After Renata Tebaldi decided against playing Aida, Gina Lollobrigida also turned down the role, and then Sophia Loren was cast. It is Loren’s first leading role. She claimed Lollobrigida’s problem was she did not want to mime to Renata Tebaldi’s singing, so Sophia took the role saying ‘I couldn’t afford to be so proud’.

Renata Tebaldi (1 February 1922 – 19 December 2004).

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,581

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