Rating: 
Summary: Very Disappointing!
Review: This film was a real disappointment. It's not a movie. It's half documentary, half historical reenactment. Although it was filmed on location in various parts of Italy, The American-accented English speaking narrator was too distracting and pretty much did all the talking in the video, so the actors had very little chance to deliver their lines. I wish this film could have been in Italian with English subtitles, so I could have gotten the flavor of the atmosphere in which the real Verdi grew up. Unfortunately, this film seemed to be geared toward an English-speaking audience, since most of the actors except Ronald Pickup spoke English with a recognizably American accent even if they were Italian. The American narrator's anglicized pronunciation of certain Italian city names like "Milan" also spoiled my apetite to continue to watch this video. Since this film is about an Italian person, the narrator should make an effort to pronounce all Italian words as close to the original Italian pronunciation as possible.
Rating: 
Summary: Verdi's Place in History
Review: This gigantic biography of Giuseppe Verdi takes up 10 hours and 4 VHS tapes and brilliantly tells the story of his creative genius and his importance in the history of his country. The beautiful Carla Fracci, one of the great ballet dancers of all time, plays the part of Giuseppina Straponi, the soprano who became Verdi's second wife. Of course, there is much great music, and since Verdi lived from 1813 to 1901, this film offers a lesson in the history of that time in Europe.
Rating:
Summary: Verdi's Place in History
Review: This gigantic biography of Giuseppe Verdi takes up 10 hours and 4 VHS tapes and brilliantly tells the story of his creative genius and his importance in the history of his country. The beautiful Carla Fracci, one of the great ballet dancers of all time, plays the part of Giuseppina Straponi, the soprano who became Verdi's second wife. Of course, there is much great music, and since Verdi lived from 1813 to 1901, this film offers a lesson in the history of that time in Europe.
Rating:
Summary: Loved the story, DVD really stank though!
Review: Well to the reviewer of this film that said he wanted the DVD of it, I can only say I hope yours is better than the one we got! All four discs in the new factory sealed copy we received have some major problems, they'll play fine for a bit and then all sorts of lines, fuzziness and sometimes even pauses occur and are most distracting.As to the film itself, we loved it! It is an interesting form of docudrama and we learned much watching it, not just about Verdi, but the changing world he lived in and his part in it. The sets are gorgeous and long as this version is, it didn't drag for us, we couldn't wait to get to the next installment to see what happened next. I didn't find the narrator annoying, just the awful quality of the dvd! If I can find it in video format I may just buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Loved the story, DVD really stank though!
Review: Well to the reviewer of this film that said he wanted the DVD of it, I can only say I hope yours is better than the one we got! All four discs in the new factory sealed copy we received have some major problems, they'll play fine for a bit and then all sorts of lines, fuzziness and sometimes even pauses occur and are most distracting. As to the film itself, we loved it! It is an interesting form of docudrama and we learned much watching it, not just about Verdi, but the changing world he lived in and his part in it. The sets are gorgeous and long as this version is, it didn't drag for us, we couldn't wait to get to the next installment to see what happened next. I didn't find the narrator annoying, just the awful quality of the dvd! If I can find it in video format I may just buy it.
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