"Gems" - Embedded in a frame story, the film shows excerpts from 18 entertainment films of the time, among others, "The Gypsy Baron", "The Three Codonas", "La Habanera", "Viennese Blood", "Sophienlund", and "Mask in Blue".
The occupation of Bessarabia by the Russians in 1940 separates an opera singer from her family, leaving her under Bolshevik rule until Romanian troops enter Odessa.
Una cantante está enamorada de un talentoso compositor pero, durante una de sus actuaciones, se derrumba y un médico le advierte que no debe volver a cantar nunca más. Dado que su contrato con la compañía de ópera especifica que el trabajo de su amante / compositor es parte del repertorio solo si ella canta, su trabajo parece estar condenado al fracaso.
Italian filmmaker Carmine Gallone was still in his "operetta" mode when he helmed 1938's Il Sogno di Butterfly (Dream of the Butterfly) Maria Cebotari plays opera diva Rosa Belloni, currently starring in a production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. The plot thickens when Rosa's backstage life begins to mirror the travails of the character she is portraying. The climax comes when Harry Peters (Fosco Giachetti), the American father of Rosa's illegitimate child, returns after four years with his new wife in tow, leading inexorably to a doleful ending both on- and offstage. Critics complained about the substandard photography in Il Sogno di Butterfly, but this might have been due to poor laboratory work.
Giuseppe Verdi, adolescente soñador e inconformista, decide abandonar su ciudad natal para estudiar música en Milán. Enfrentado al rechazo inicial del selecto círculo de la ópera italiana, Verdi vive en el fracaso hasta que conoce a la popular soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, con la que contrae matrimonio y comienza así una intensa trayectoria tan llena de éxitos como de fracasos.
A romance between two temperamental singing stars. Highlights include a lengthy selection from Faust, with Gigli making a most impressive Mephistopheles. The plot takes a melodramatic turn towards the climax, with the lives of the characters mirrored in their on-stage behavior. Director Carmine Gallone was something of an expert in the field of filmed opera, as witness his Tosca, Rigoletto and Il Trovatore.
