Search - Nino Rota :: La Vita di Maria

Very beautiful!

Dwayne | 03/08/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Nino Rota's oratorio work took me by pleasant surprise. I like all of his music, but his operatic work has been a bit more difficult to get into. With the exception of his invented opera for the film The Glass Mountain (1949), La Vita di Maria (The Life of Mary, 1968-69) is perhaps the most beautiful work of his for voice and orchestra I know of. There are two especially beautiful moments: the main theme, which is echoed at various stages and concludes the work, which brings a joy to me every single time I hear it; and the other is in the cue Il Presepio, which adapts one of his lesser known but very gorgeous themes from Zeffirelli's Romeo & Juliet (1968) and adds voice. For those two themes alone, this should justify it's addition to any Rota fans collection. The performance (under Rota) and recording are especially nice."