Rating: 
Summary: Though Not Perfect, A Good Introduction To Opera
Review: That should sum up the schism viewers have for Zefferelli's opera film starring Placido Domigo and Teresa Stratas. There is no question about the supremacy of the film visually. The famous Italian director has made excellent, quality drama and opera as film in the 60's, 70's and 80's; among them the 1968 Romeo and Juliet, Verdi's Othello (also with Domingo) and the 1991 Hamlet starring Mel Gibson. Zefferelli lavishes his films with artistry and lush photography, especially striking are his sweeping locales and precise camerawork. For Verdi's tragic romance, he has selected a fine location that is meant to resemble the French countryside, luxurious interior "ballroom" scenes, effective lighting and contrast, and actors and actresses that look the part. Vocally speaking, the only reason you should get this opera is the tremendous talent of Placido Domingo. He is the equivalent of Enrico Caruso for the twentieth century, an incarnation of the master, appearing handsome and earthy, as well as singing and acting his roles as any Hollywood star would approach the role (could they sing opera that is ). As the lovestruck Alfredo, his arias are striking and reveal great character, especially his "Un Di Felice", his "De Mei Bolenti Spiriti" "O Mio Rimorso" and his final duet "Parigi O Cara". Teresa Stratas looks the part, she is pale and delicate, exotically beautiful as the dying courtesan Violetta. But she has vocal limitations, especially in the higher registers. She has no warmth to her voice and has rather limpid, straightforward vocal lines. The role of Violetta is not an easy role for most sopranos- the heroine must sing most of the time in the course of three acts, and each characterization differs from the other- in Act I she is a flirtatious, bubbly and charming, even operetta-like heroine where her aria "Sempre Libera" demands coloratura fireworks, and her cavatina "A Fors E Lui" requires mellow lyricism. This same type of lyricism, although sung to serve the theme of pathos and dramatic suffering, should be very clear through her duet with Germont in Act 2. These are the arias "Non Sepete" "Ditte A La Giovine" and "Morro La Mia Memoria". In Act 3, she must convey her immediate situation, she is dying and taking her last breath, urges Alfredo to remember her name and to remarry, consuming the audience with the portrayal that although she has been a glittering, amoral prostitute, she will die with God's forgiveness and the joy of having fallen deeply in love. Though vocally this is not the best La Traviata, this is certainly a good introduction to opera. If you watch this film, you might be tempted to see a performance of La Traviata. For recordings of this classic masterpiece, you should go for your favorite soprano. Most go for Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland. I went for Beverly Sills, who sang the role a record 54 times in the space of 63 days, (no one but Sills could ever know the role of Violetta Valery) and who truly masters the role with dramatic, artistic value and sheer, tonal and vocal beauty. All in all, this is still a good film, despite the negative comments below my review.
Rating: 
Summary: Zeffereli+ Verdi Plus Film Equals Greatness
Review: You don't have to be an opera fan to enjoy this film. Noted Italian director Franco Zeffreli (Romeo and Juliet 1968) and Hamlet with Mel Gibson, Glen Close(1991) makes Verdi's classic opera into an unforgettable movie experience. The Italian bel canto is at his flower with Domingo in the role of Alfredo, a poor young man from the French Provence who falls for the lusty but deathly ill Violetta Valery (Teresa Stratas). The romance is brought beautifully to life with spectacular dances and lavish locales. The music of Verdi, from the Prelude to Act 1 and 3 to the very key moments of the opera, are conducted to perfection by Levine. The great numbers are all here - the Brindisi, "Sempre Libera" the duets between Alfredo and Violetta "Parigi O Cara ", and Stratas does a wonderful performance in the arias "Ah Ser Fu lei," "O Gran Dio Morir Si Giovine " and "Addio Del Passato." We must also emphasize the beauty of her duet with Alfredo's father in "Conozca Il Sacrificio" and Giorgio's excellent "Pura siccome angelo " and "Di Provincia Il Mare " not to mention the brilliant ensemble pieces such as the finale to Act 2. And the dances! "No Siamo Zingarelle " the dances of the Gypsies and the Matore chorus and revelers. The love theme "Un Di Felice" in which Alfredo pours out his love to Violetta is lovely and the death scene captured wonderfully. Go ahead and see for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: La Traviata: Opera For Valentines
Review: This 1982 opera-film is highly recommended. It's a perfect way to get into opera if you are a novice and seek to get deeply in love with opera. La Traviata might just do the trick. Franco Zefferelli was by this time a veteran Italian cinema director. He had directed such romantic classics as 1968's Romeo and Juliet. He has a flair for elaborate visuals and scenery. He selects gorgeous locations to shoot his films and drapes the characters with elegant costumes that they seem to come straight out of the 19th century itself. It's very clear that he spends much money and time on his films. He would also direct Shakespeare's Hamlet starring Mel Gibson in the early 90's. It was no secret that Zefferelli loved opera. An Italian man, the opera was a passion to him instilled since his youth. He loved Puccini operas and Verdi operas. Verdi's La Traviata must have been a real delight for him to direct and he always cast the best singers and actors. In this case, he was smart to cast Placido Domingo and Teresa Stratas as the tenor and soprano lovers Alfredo and Violetta. This opera is given a film treatment- there is enough room for the singers to act as well. The film is made in a retrospective style. Alfredo, the romantic lead, is remembering the one year he spent with Violetta and how she died tragically. It reminds me of the way that Baz Luhrman formatted Moulin Rouge, which has the same technique- boy meets girl, boy loses girl to death, boy is remembering their love story and re-telling it to an audience. With opera, strong emotions are carried out through the dramatic musical score and through the singing, which is required to be sung with real feeling and passion. Placido Domingo, quite possibly the world's greatest tenor, sings with real substance and real passion, which we are inclined to believe springs naturally from his Spanish heritage. Placido Domingo is sensational as Alfredo, his romantic yearnings expressed in the Brindisi, in the "Un Di Felice" duet, throught Act 2's Flora Party's scenes and in the later portions of the opera, especially towards the end. Teresa Stratas, a Canadian soprano with exotic looks (she reminded people of Maria Callas) has an equally gorgeous and dramatic voice. It's greatly to her credit that she's a beautiful woman as well as actress, who can convince the audience as a frail, glamorous beauty who gives up the courtesan life to live with her true love only to meet with an ill fate. Suffering of tubercolosis (or possibly a sexually trasmitted disease like syphillis but Verdi was'nt going to shock everyone with that much information in his opera) Violetta hides her secret torment by giving herself over to decadent pleasures. She lives it up during the Belle Epoque in Paris as a high-class hooker, owns a villa in the country and has many lovers. But she finally finds meaning in her life when she falls in love with Alfredo, a gentleman caller and one-time client of hers. But Alfredo's father disapproves of their love simply because Violetta is a courtesan or has had a past as a lady of the night. He convinces Violetta to give up Alfredo. The tension builds as Violetta and Alfredo are temporarily seperated. For Violetta, tragedy strikes. She becomes increasingly ill to the point she is confined in bed. Teresa Strats delivers her best work in the last act, in which she is reunited with Alfredo only to die in his arms. Her "Addio Del Passato" is heartbreaking as is her death scene, even if she may lack the brilliance and vocal fireworks for the Act 1 aria "Sempre Libera" and even perhaps the "Amami Alfredo " farewell scene. This is a perfect film to watch on the day dedicated to love- Valentine's Day.
Rating:
Summary: Opera Cinema At Its Very Best
Review: This film is the standard by which all opera films must be measured. Zefirelli gets right to work and makes good use of the mournful overture by showing the creditors of the dying Violetta ransacking her formerly grand Paris apartment. We realize with horror at the end of the overture that she is still there, coughing away, in the apartment, while the creditors cart away the beautiful accoutrements of her former life. The remainder of the opera is portrayed as a sensational flashback as the blues of the scenes shown during the overture give rise to the warm candlelight tones of the party, brilliantly costumed, acted, and sung. The "Brindisi" scene is absolute perfection: meltingly sung by both Placido Domingo and Teresa Stratas, romantic and well-matched leads, stunningly costumed, with a lavish spread on the table that would make Martha Stewart look like a piker. The middle scenes with Cornell McNeil drag somewhat, perhaps because the country idyll of Violetta is inherently unbelievable, and the lyric soprano singing isn't quite as interesting as the coloratura singing in the first act, and the dramatic singing in the third act. No matter. The large choral scenes which follow are satisfyingly dramatic, with no less a personage than Natalia Makarova in a dancing role, and Alfredo's denunciation of Violetta is both melodic and superbly villainous. As the opera ends, we discover, in a cruel Zeffirellian twist, that Violetta's deathbed reunion with Alfredo has been a dying hallucination, as the set fades to the same blues of the overture. Get out your handkerchiefs.
Rating:
Summary: Traviata agotada
Review: Parece que la extraviada (Traviata)realmente esta muy enferma al final ya que la escena esta incompleta. esto no deberia asombrarnos ya que Zeffirelli hizo algo peor con su Otello con su recortada aria del Sauce. Excepto este detalle no tan importante como el Otello, la pelicula es muy bella aunque para los puristas, entre los que me incluyo humildemente quizas por mi condicion de Profesor de Apreciacion Musical, encuentro en ella tal como note en la Carmen de Migenes y Domingo, ruidos innecesarios que en la presentacion en un teatro serian imperdonables; al fin y al cabo lo importante es la musica y no los extras caprichosos de Zeffirelli. A pesar de estos pequenos detalles la presentacion es maravillosa; las cuatro estrelas en vez de cinco obedecen a estas para algunos quizas necedades. Para mi repito, soy un purista y pienso en la intencion siempre del compositor. Recomiendo la version de Beverly Sills y ni se diga la de Angela Ghiorgiu, superiores excepto los tenores ya que Placido Domingo sigue siendo el mejor.
Rating:
Summary: The second greatest opera film of all time
Review: Only the film version of Carmen tops this breathtakingly beautiful and sumptuous production of La Traviata. During the overture we see Violetta towards the end of the opera, nearing her tragic death. She looks more like a phantasm, especially when seen next to her lovely portrait, painted when she was radiating beauty and health. Act one thus marks the start of Violetta reminiscing about how she and Alfredo fell in love. This is a most effective beginning, and as this is a film it gives us unique new insights into one of Verdi's most well-known and beloved operas. As such, it allows us to view the opera with new eyes, making us fall in love with it all over again. The singing and acting of Domingo and Stratas are outstanding, although that of Cornell Macneil is somewhat stiff. Aside from perhaps tradionalists who believe that opera can only be performed in the opera house, this film version is sure to please opera and non-opera fans alike.
Rating:
Summary: Almost perfect
Review: I loved this film. Only about 20 minutes were excised from the score, it was nearly complete. At greater length in the other reviews can be read descriptions of the ballet, breathtakingly beautiful scenery, particularly effective arias. Domingo and Stratas were wonderful. I have Stratas in Boheme on DVD (to replace my original VHS), it made me cry. Traviata made me cry. Can you call anything so painful beautiful? The music was of course glorious. The principals acted and sang to perfection, and of course frail diminutive Stratas looked the part. The movie began interesting, then became wonderful at the first party with the drinking song, then lost interest for me for some time, then picked up again and never let up. The camera-work and crowd scenes were brilliantly done. (I don't like to use the word "brilliant" because it sounds so affected, but I will.) I resent the reviews that call this a good introduction to opera, as though it were somehow inferior to "real opera," I find it condescending, supercilious, pompous and demeaning. However, I gave a copy of the movie to a close friend of mine who also cried, watched it twice and loved it, and this was I think her first opera. It is very beautiful music, well-acted, well-directed, well-sung and with scenery beyond belief.
Rating: 
Summary: terrible and embarassing subtitles
Review: I have this Zefferilli movie on Laserdisc and am familiar with it; the Laserdisc version has appropriate subtitile, i.e. translation of the Italian dialogue into English. This DVD version has inappropriate garbage in the subtitles, e.g. "laughter" "vocalizing" "coughing" etc., which is distracting and spoils the opera.
Rating:
Summary: Disfigured by cuts
Review: This film looks beautiful and the performances by Domingo and Stratas are wonderful (although she is not in her best voice). James Levine's conducting and the playing of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra are as good as you can hear anywhere. The ballet is spectacular. But Zeffirelli cuts away at least one-fourth of the score. He (and many other film makers who have made movies of operas) just doesn't seem to understand that a film of an opera is not an adaptation; it is a performance of that opera using a different medium. An opera is a musical composition; therefore, a film of an opera is a musical performance of a music drama. The film medium frees the visual presentation from the limitations of the stage, but the musical presentation is the essence of the opera and must not be compromised regardless of the medium. Some of Zeffirelli's cuts must infuriate any lover of opera. For example, when Giorgio departs from Violetta after she has promised to leave Alfredo, Zeffirelli cuts some of the "addio"s, saving just a few seconds but destroying the end of the scene. If the opera is more important to you than the cinematography, you may want to buy the DVD starring Angela Gheorghiu and Frank Lopardo, conducted by the late Georg Solti.
Rating: 
Summary: Cinema 2, Opera 1
Review: Your opinion of "La Traviata" is likely to depend on how free you feel filmmakers should be to adapt established works of art. Director Franco Zeffirelli has practically made a career out of adapting one "classic" play or opera after another (not to mention the life of Jesus) into a parade of baroquely extravagant movies. There is nothing radical in any of Zeffirelli's films. He treats all of the originals in more or less traditional, respectful ways. He just usually does it with such lush abandon that people often have difficulty with the results. These "difficulties" derive from the untenable, though surprisingly persistent, belief that there is a "pure" version of a book, play or other literary effort that a filmmaker can somehow serve if only he or she is "faithful" enough to the original. This attitude is never less defensible than with a work like "La Traviata," since Verdi's opera is itself an adaptation of a Dumas novel. If composers are free to adapt novels without censure, why should filmmakers have to justify their changes? On the other hand, having chosen a particular work, the filmmaker can't just ignore it. So stuffed to the gills with decor, splashy camerawork and whirling, twirling, cavorting extras, "La Traviata" doesn't so much ignore the opera as overwhelm the story and music which were, presumably, the reason for making the film. The score is competently performed, although lacking in the visceral and emotional thrills one would expect. Some of the most famous arias have been truncated substantially, giving the impression that the filmmakers were embarrassed by their familiarity. Domingo and Stratas give it their all, but don't bring out much in each other. Their love is more conventional than convincing and the resulting histrionics have to be taken on faith more than experienced as the tragic inevitability of oversized passions. Only the work of cinematographer Ennio Guarnieri, costume designer Piero Tosi and Zeffirelli (as production designer and director) stand out, which is another way of saying that in the competing demands between opera and film, cinema wins in "La Traviata." It is a sumptuous, often spellbinding spectacle, full of ravishing images and sequences of great panache. As a performance of "La Traviata," however, it borders on the perfunctory.
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