House of Ricordi (Casa Ricordi, 1954) Louis Bayman dir. Carmine Gallone; prod. Raymond Froment; screenplay Agenore Incrocci, Furio Scarpelli, Vittorio Nino Novarese, Leonardo Benvenuti, Luigi Filippo D’Amico, Carmine Gallone; photography Marco Scarpelli; music Renzo Rossellini, feat. Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, Giacomo Puccini, Gioachino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi, Riccardo Zandonai. 35mm, Technicolor, 110 mins. Diana Cinematografca, distrib. Compass Film. One issue among the many raised by the abundant variety of contributions to this book is that melodrama can mean dif ferent things in dif ferent times and places. In Italy, this ambiguity is even inscribed in the dictionary, which gives the word two distinct defnitions. Melodramma—especially when shortened, of ten with a hint of disapproval, to mélo —refers to the kind of popular dramatics that form the proper subject of this book. But melodramma is also another word for opera lirica—opera—a term originating in the 16th century public spectacles that combined music with drama. As several re- cent studies into the particularities of Italian melodrama have shown, including my own Te Operatic and the Everyday in Postwar Italian Film Melodrama, and John Champag- ne’s Italian Masculinity as Queer Melodrama, this ambiguity is more than just a linguistic quirk. Indeed, we could say that if there is any unifying character to be found in such a varied term as melodrama at all, then this conjunction with opera might provide the key to unlocking it. Tis proposition is nicely encapsulated by the 1954 flm Casa Ricordi, a particularly successful example of cineopera, an Italian flm genre that features as many perfor- mances of opera music as possible within its plot. Te flm tells the history of the legen- dary Ricordi sheet-music publishing house, the Casa Ricordi, which the flm credits with the creation of a national operatic tradition (with an emphasis on the recording over the live performance, which surely has some relevance to its own status as fl- Courtesy of the Everett Collection