Casa Ricordi (House of Ricordi) is a 1954 French-Italian historical biographical melodrama film based on the early history of the Italian music publishing house Ricordi. It is directed by Carmine Gallone and stars Märta Torén, Marcello Mastroianni and Micheline Presle. Audio in Italian with English subtitles.
The film traces the fictionalized history of the great dynasty of music publishers (at first only through scores and then records) Ricordi, which took place throughout the nineteenth century with Giovanni, the founder, and then his son Tito and his grandson Giulio. The film's sets were designed by Mario Chiari. It was shot at the Cinecittà Studios and on location in Milan, Paris and Rome.
The House of Ricordi, great music publishing family of Milan, fed the spark that flamed into the Golden Age of Italian Opera. It unleashed a tide of genius by fostering the careers of some of the greatest composers of all time. The film describes meetings with the great protagonists of Italian opera: from Rossini to Bellini, from Donizetti to Verdi, ending with Puccini at the beginning of the twentieth century, all of whom passed through Ricordi publishers to have their works printed.
Casa Ricordi is a publisher of primarily classical music and opera. Its classical repertoire represents one of the important sources in the world through its publishing of the work of the major 19th-century Italian composers such as Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, Giuseppe Verdi, and, later in the century, Giacomo Puccini, composers with whom one or another of the Ricordi family came into close contact. Founded in Milan in 1808 as G. Ricordi & C. by violinist Giovanni Ricordi (1785–1853), the Ricordi company became a totally family-run organization until 1919, when outside management was appointed. Four generations of Ricordis were at the helm of the company, Giovanni being succeeded in 1853 by his son Tito (1811–1888) (who had worked for his father since 1825). Tito's son was Giulio (1840–1912). He had also worked for his father, beginning full-time in 1863, and then took over from 1888 until his death in 1912. Finally, Giulio's son, also named Tito, (1865–1933) replaced his father until 1919. By the 1840s and throughout that decade, Casa Ricordi had grown to be the largest music publisher in southern Europe and in 1842 the company created the musical journal the Gazzetta Musicale di Milano.
Cast & Characters:
Paolo Stoppa as Giovanni Ricordi
Renzo Giovampietro as Tito I Ricordi
Andrea Checchi as Giulio Ricordi
Roland Alexandre as Gioachino Rossini
Roldano Lupi as Domenico Barbaja
Märta Torén as Isabella Colbran
Marcello Mastroianni as Gaetano Donizetti
Micheline Presle as Virginia Marchi
Maurice Ronet as Vincenzo Bellini
Myriam Bru as Luisa Lewis
Nadia Gray as Giulia Grisi
Fosco Giachetti as Giuseppe Verdi
Elisa Cegani as Giuseppina Strepponi
Gabriele Ferzetti as Giacomo Puccini
Fausto Tozzi as Arrigo Boito
Operas used in the movie:
1. Il barbiere di Siviglia - Composed by Gioachino Rossini (1816)
Sung by Tito Gobbi and Giulio Neri
2. L'elisir d'amore - Composed by Gaetano Donizetti (1832)
3. I puritani - Composed by Vincenzo Bellini (1835)
4. Un ballo in maschera - Composed by Giuseppe Verdi (1859)
5. Otello - Composed by Giuseppe Verdi (1887)
Final aria sung by Mario Del Monaco
6. La bohème - Composed by Giacomo Puccini (1892-1895)
Sung by Renata Tebaldi as Mimi
7. Nabucco - Composed by Giuseppe Verdi
[Opera Excerpt]
Singers: Mario Del Monaco, Tito Gobbi, Renata Tebaldi, Giulio Neri, Italo Tajo, Gianni Poggi, Giulietta Simionato, Gino Mattera, Marinella Meli.
Conductors: Franco Capuana, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Gabriele Santini, Franco Ferrara;
Choirmaster Giuseppe Conca.
Historical inaccuracies:
- The death of Vincenzo Bellini takes place on the evening of the premiere of the opera I puritani. In reality the opera was performed for the first time on 24 January 1835 but Bellini died on 23 September of that same year.
- In the episode of Verdi, when a bitter Verdi goes to the countryside where he will write Othello, in reality there are still about twenty years left and great successes to tell.
- In the film the date of the first move of the Ricordi headquarters towards the Casa degli Omenoni is indicated as 23 March 1848 by Tito Ricordi who we see hanging the portrait of his late father on a wall. In reality Giovanni Ricordi died only in 1853.
- In the film it is said that Giulio Ricordi fought at the age of sixteen on the barricades of the Five Days of Milan, but in reality in 1848 he was just 8 years old.
