Anna Moffo as Madama Butterfly DVD 1956 Opera in Three Acts / Directed by Mario Lanfranchi / Music by Giacomo Puccini / Orchestra and Chorus Radiotelevisione Italiana Milano / Conducted by Oliviero De Fabritiis

UPC 089948428497

• REGION 0 PAL DVD (ALL REGIONS)
• MADE IN USA
• AUDIO: Italian mono
• SUBTITLES: English, French, German
• Total Runtime: 127 minutes

A beautiful performance of one of Puccini's masterpieces with a glorious butterfly AnnaMoffo and an excellent cast, an adorable child that will bring tears to your eyes.

English Summary:

This 1956 RAI telecast stars Anna Moffo in the performance that brought her international renown. Renato Cioni sings Pinkerton and Afro Poli sings Sharpless. Oliviero de Fabritis leads the Orchestra & Chorus of Radio televisione Italiana Milano.

When Anna Moffo stepped before the cameras of RAI in Milan on January 24, 1956 for a telecast of Madama Butterfly, the young soprano from Wayne, Pennsylvania was virtually unknown.

Normally, RAI television productions relied upon seasoned, popular performers. However, for this telecast, director Mario Lanfranchi wanted a soprano who would appear credible as the fifteen-year-old described by Puccini's librettists. He settled on Anna Moffo, and, in doing so, started the young singer on an upward career trajectory of breathtaking speed. In 1956 alone, Moffo was subsequently cast in leading roles in RAI telecasts of Falstaff, Mosé and La Sonnambula. She was also chosen by conductor Antonio Votto for the role of Musetta in the Callas recording of La Boheme and, in November, opened the 1956-57 San Carlo Opera season as Nannetta in Falstaff. Debuts at La Scala, the Salzburg Festival under Von Karajan, and the Vienna State Opera followed closely in 1957 with a Chicago Lyric Opera
debut as Nannetta and Liu in 1958. Moffo's rapturously-received first appearance at the Metropolitan Opera as Violetta in La Traviata occurred just one year later. That debut elicited one of Variety's more whimsical headlines: Moffo Boffo! Cio-cio san is one of the most demanding roles in opera, requiring beauty of sound, dramatic credibility, vocal resources to ride above a heavy orchestration, and stamina. From the time of her first appearance, Cio-Cio San is rarely off Stage. As is apparent from this performance, Anna Moffo filled all of these requirements superbly, and this from a singer barely on the brink of her career! 

Giacomo Puccini
Madama Butterfly

Cast:
Cio-Cio San - Anna Moffo
Pinkerton - Renato Cioni
Sharpless - Afro Poli
Suzuki - Miti Truccato Pace
Goro - Gino Del Signore
Kate Pinkerton - Letla Dori
Il principe Yamadori - Pierluigi Latinucci
Lo zio Bonzo - Dimitri Lopatto
Il commissario imperiale - Aristide Baracchi

Orchestra and Chorus of Radiotelevisione Italiana Milano
Oliviero De Fabritiis
Directed by Mario Lanfranchi

Anna Moffo (June 27, 1932 – March 9, 2006) was an American opera singer, television personality, and actress. One of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation, she possessed a warm and radiant voice of considerable range and agility. Noted for her physical beauty, she was nicknamed "La Bellissima".

Winning a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Italy, Moffo became popular there after performing leading operatic roles on three RAI television productions in 1956. She returned to America for her debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago on October 16, 1957. In New York, her Metropolitan Opera debut took place on November 14, 1959. She performed at the Met for over seventeen seasons. Moffo's earliest recordings were made for EMI Records; she signed an exclusive contract with RCA Victor in 1960, recording for the company until the late 1970s. In the early 1960s, she hosted her own show on Italian television and appeared in several operatic films along with other non-singing roles.

In the early 1970s Moffo extended her international popularity to Germany through operatic performances, TV appearances, and several films, all while continuing her American operatic performances. Due to an extremely heavy workload, Moffo suffered a serious vocal-breakdown from which she never fully recovered. Her final appearance at the Metropolitan Opera was in 1983.