Rapsodia Satanica

Rapsodia Satanica
Directed by	Nino Oxilia
Based on	Poems by Fausto Maria Martini
Starring	Lyda Borelli Andrea Habay Ugo Bazzini Giovanni Cini
Music by	Pietro Mascagni
Release date	1915 (1915)
Country	Italy
Language	Silent (Italian intertitles)

Rapsodia satanica

Rapsodia Satanica ('Satanic Rhapsody') is a 1915 Italian silent film directed by Nino Oxilia featuring Lyda Borelli in a female version of Faust based on poems by Fausto Maria Martini. Pietro Mascagni wrote his only film music for the film and conducted the first performance in July 1917. ^[1] Mascagni was keen to take commission for the film music due to the financial burden of supporting two sickening brothers. ^{[2] [3]}

The French-German TV channel Arte restored the film in 2006 and Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, conducted by Frank Strobel recorded Mascagni's score.

Cast

• Lyda Borelli as Contessa Alba d'Oltrevita
• Andrea Habay as Tristano
• Ugo Bazzini as Mephisto
• Giovanni Cini as Sergio

Plot

Elderly Countess Alba d'Oltrevita hosts a party in her castle, but remains behind after the guests depart, mourning her lost youth. Mephistopheles, depicted in a painting, emerges and offers her renewed youth on the condition that she never falls in love again. Alba accepts.

As a young woman, Alba is courted by two brothers, Tristano and Sergio. Although she rejects Sergio, she falls in love with Tristano. When Tristano kisses her, Sergio, distraught, commits suicide. Tristano, overwhelmed with guilt, leaves.

In the aftermath, Alba isolates herself in the castle, consumed by her feelings for Tristano. Mephistopheles tells her that Tristano rides past the mountains each night, prompting her to prepare the castle to receive him. Expecting his arrival, she instead encounters Mephistopheles, who restores her old age as punishment for breaking her vow. Alba gazes at her reflection in a pond and dies. ^[4]

Themes

Rapsodia Satanica reimagines the Faust myth with a female protagonist, Alba d'Oltrevita. Unlike traditional versions, which typically center on a male scholar, the film frames the narrative through a woman's pact with Mephistopheles. ^[4]

References

1. Campana, Alessandra (2015). Opera and Modern Spectatorship in Late Nineteenth-Century Italy. ISBN   978-1-107-05189-8. a peculiar experiment involving a 'diva film' and an opera composer: the silent film Rapsodia satanica (1914–17), interpreted by the famous actress Lyda Borelli, with an orchestral score by Pietro Mascagni
2. Raffaelli, Sergio (1987). Mascagni e il Cinema: La Musica per Rapsodia Satanica. OCLC   848542988.
3. Mallach, Alan (2002). Pietro Mascagni and His Operas. p. 214. ISBN   978-1-55553-524-7. With few other immediate sources of income at hand, the forty-five thousand lire from Cines for Rapsodia satanica, as well as the fifty thousand promised for a second film score, were much on his mind.
4. Urrows, David Francis; Bernhart, Walter (15 May 2019). Music, Narrative and the Moving Image: Varieties of Plurimedial Interrelations. BRILL. p. 71. ISBN   978-90-04-40131-0.

External links

• Rapsodia Satanica at IMDb