Talk:Bella figlia dell'amore

The 2012 film etc

Michael Bednarek Some good edits, thank you, but one in particular I query... edit summary correct film plot: it's not performed... I have to ask, have you seen the film? It ends with the performance about to commence, and we then go to the outside of the building, and the performance starts, and then continues under the credits. This performance is very much a part of the plot and dramatic action of the film.

So the edit summary saying it's not performed is just plain contrary to the facts, not so bad as adding such misinformation to the article but still unfortunate, and the article has lost accurate content. Or that's my view.

The performance is off-camera, and the singers are not the actors of the film roles, but neither of these (both quite common) devices remove the performance from the film plot in any meaningful sense. Andrewa (talk) 10:42, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I have seen the film, and the last scene leaves it very much in doubt whether the four are going to perform the quartet or not. The music heard over the closing titles is obviously not them, because it's the 1971 Decca recording with the London Symphony Orchestra under Richard Bonynge with Luciano Pavarotti, Huguette Tourangeau, Sherrill Milnes, Joan Sutherland, and they are not lending their voices to the the four actors. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:59, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Obviously I interpreted it completely differently, to the point that I wonder whether the plot of the play (which I admit to not having read or seen) has misled you. In the play (according to our article) it is indeed left up in the air. In the film it is not. The scene is continuous, and the implication is clear that what we are hearing is the concert performance, and there seems to me to be no attempt to suggest otherwise.

Screenplays do often differ in such things, and musical adaptations of plays in general tend to happier endings. The most spectacular example is probably the different endings of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady. The endings are equally satisfying for their genres, even masterful in each case, and My Fair Lady has been called the perfect musical, but the endings are significantly different, with the ambiguous but arguably happy ending taken from the 1938 film where it had been added against Shaw's wishes, rather than following the original play.

And the argument that the four singers are not lending their voices to the the four actors is completely invalid. As I said above, this is a very common device in film making... would you like a list of other films in which an actor sings or plays a musical instrument, but another (more competent but often uncredited) person actually performs the music?

No, lending their voices is exactly what they are doing, and while I didn't know the recording, I certainly knew it wasn't Billy Connolly singing!

Have you a source that gives the details of the recording? That information belongs in the article on the film. I think the artists are credited at the end of the DVD, and possibly also in the bonus files which I have yet to watch, but I'm not sure that the recording or the orchestra is, and in any case it would be better to have a secondary source. See Talk:Quartet (2012 film)#Musicians, Andrewa (talk) 04:56, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The plot in the German Wikipedia (de:Quartett (2012)#Handlung) describes the ending the same way I see it (it is unclear whether the Quartet will be performed); that is of course not a reliable source. The plot in the English article is silent on the matter; the Italian sees it your way (the quartet is staged with great success). My memory as I described it above, partly confirmed by your description: they enter the stage and the film ends; we hear the quartet being performed, but we don't see it. If the director wanted us to think that they performed it or lip-synched it, he would have shown that. He didn't, but played a very well know recording instead. That performance cannot be characterised as lending a singing voice to the actors because they weren't on screen when we heard the music. I'm familiar with films where professional singers have been used to dub for actors, but the performance of the Quartet here is just part of the film's soundtrack, similar to "The Swan" from The Carnival of the Animals and many other pieces which appear earlier in the film. Anyway, for the purpose of this article, it's neither here nor there what happened in the film. A description of the scene in the opera, a musical analysis, the libretto in Italian & English, those would be more important. I will try to attend to those matters within a week. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:54, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

If the director wanted us to think that they performed it or lip-synched it, he would have shown that. He didn't, but played a very well know recording instead. That performance cannot be characterised as lending a singing voice to the actors because they weren't on screen when we heard the music. I think this is speculation at best, and very poor speculation at that. For example, you seem to be assuming that the film's audience would recognise this very well know recording. I think that this assumption is at least questionable, and probably false, and that the director would not have made it.

My particular interest in the song at this time came from a request that the recording should be used at a funeral. All of those involved in the planning (self included) knew the film well. All of us have recordings of Pavarotti, and most probably of Sutherland as well, at the very least. None of us recognised this particular recording other than that it was the one used in the film! I think the others will probably think they recognise Pavarotti at least in hindsight when I tell them, and recognise that you had no difficulty in recognising the recording, and I'm sure many others would recognise it as well. But this is not typical either of Wikipedia readers or of viewers of the DVD. Do you still think that it's at all relevant that the recording is very well known? I don't! It's just not sufficiently well known for the director to have relied on that.

Agree that various Wikipedia articles differ on aspects of the plot. Agree that it proves nothing... other than that at least one of them needs fixing! Which is of course the whole function of talk page discussions such as this. Agree that this particular discussion is more relevant to other articles. Links to it from their talk pages can and hopefully will appear in due course (I have added one already).

But your memory of the ending is inaccurate in what I think are some very important details. They enter the stage but the film does not end there. Not by a very long shot indeed! Reg has just proposed to Jean as they were about to go on. Jean initiates a little final dialogue, onstage (most unprofessional, but you know sopranos): "Were you serious?" "Yes." "OK." They grasp each others hands in close-up. The wedding is on, there is no ambiguity at all about that, and I'm guessing that this is a very significant departure from the play script, but this is the film we are discussing here.

The camera then goes to a shot of the outside of the building, warmly lit. The Director of Beecham House has in her welcome to the audience thanked them for their generosity (so it's not just ticket sales as some have speculated elsewhere, the plot is quite consistent) and said that the home is saved from closure, so the outside of the building is a real feelgood shot. And the song begins, and the film then ends, partway through the song. The final scene ends when we go from the view of Beecham House to blackout, but the song continues and the credits then roll.

Do you really think that there is any ambiguity at all about the performance and its success? That the song represents only the thoughts of the persons on stage (two of whom have become engaged in the last few seconds, and seem to be thinking about that by what their hands are doing) rather than also what the audience inside the hall is hearing? I think you should watch it again. Andrewa (talk) 23:14, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with your more detailed description of the film's ending. However, my point – that the actors are not shown performing the quartet – still stands. Further, the music we hear when the camera shows Beeacham House in the evening sun is not the beginning of the quartet but the last 3 minutes, omitting the first minute where the duke sings alone (to Maddalena), so it's obviously not a stage performance of the quartet.

Aside: why anybody would want to play this at a funeral or why you would think that the work has anything to do with the thoughts of the characters on stage and their engagement is beyond me. The utterly despicable duke tries to seduce a woman of very loose morals while Gilda's father has taken his daughter to the scene to expose the duke's callousness to Gilda while plotting to murder the duke. All four characters, including Gilda and her father, have terrible flaws which will lead to a tragic result. The music is beautiful, no doubt (although Gilda's suffering is quite obvious), but the text and context and the consequences cannot be ignored. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:19, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I take your point about the omission of the first part of the song. I can see why this was done, the focus is on Jean's voice, so it was important that she start to sing early in the performance. Yes, they have taken a liberty with the original song to achieve this. I don't think it's any more significant than that.

And I similarly think that the point that the actors are not shown performing the quartet is insignificant. I can see why it was done. Lip-synching is a risky business, and there was every chance of sending a perhaps subliminal message of unreality were it not done perfectly, and that would have been deadly to the feelgood that was I think the director's intent. By way of contrast, I think that what was done worked very well indeed, and for so little stress on the film crew or budget.

Reply to aside: Yes, I was concerned that it was inappropriate for exactly those reasons. But the funeral in question went extremely well, and I hope and suspect that I was the only one there concerned about the content or original context of the song words. And, seen purely as the quartet from the film of that ilk, it was extremely appropriate for reasons I won't go into here. So the text and context can be and were ignored.

And part of that is that they are ignored in the film too! Jean's words of acceptance when she first agreed to perform were I may crack on the high notes. At the end she is blissfully happy, and on that level oblivious to the meaning of the words she is singing, and singing well (and on that level I suppose she would be relating to the words, but that is meta-fantasy). That very happy ending is very much part of the film (but I gather not of the play).

Further reply to aside: why you would think that the work has anything to do with the thoughts of the characters on stage and their engagement: If by the work you mean the song, it was suggested by another contributor (not you obviously) that the use of the recording in the film was to represent the thoughts of those about to perform rather than their actual performance, and it seemed a possible but highly unlikely interpretation to me. We seem to agree that it's not the best interpretation. So I'm fascinated... I think it quite obviously represents the performance, as I have said. What do you think it represents? Andrewa (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I think the ending is deliberately ambiguous – we just don't know what happens on stage because the director doesn't tell us. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:04, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I think we will just need to agree to disagree on this for now. I have no intention of reverting your edit on the point in question, nor any right to do so. I have made the point that, in my opinion, important and verifiable content has been lost, but neither of us has a reliable secondary source to cite, and unless and until I find one, I'll leave it at that.

Thanks for a robust and civil discussion which will I think be valuable to any others who take up the issue later. Andrewa (talk) 18:09, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Recordings

It would be good to add a section to the article listing particularly famous recordings. The one one used in the film Quartet has been mentioned in #The 2012 film etc above, but there are others featuring Pavarotti and Sutherland that also enjoy some fame. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5NEOh-XhyA for a start. Andrewa (talk) 19:23, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

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