Tosca's Kiss

Casa Verdi is a rest home in Milan. It was founded for retired opera singers. The composer Giuseppe Verdi founded it. It opened in 1896 and was the first of its kind. The documentary listens to the people living there. Singers and musicians speak. They go back over their careers. They remember the roles they once sang. The film is built largely out of what they say. The camera listens without getting in the way. What comes out is a kind of memoir of Italian opera. The film has taken on a cult standing among opera and music lovers. Sara Scuderi and Leonida Bellon appear in the eighty seven minute documentary, a Swiss production Daniel Schmid finished in 1984.