Word: donati
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...plot of Gianni Schicchi turns on the engaging protagonist, a wily peasant who thwarts the rapacious Donati, a family of Florentine landowners, in order to provide his daughter and her lover with the money they need to wed. All of the opera's characters are sharply delineated, with a delicate but mordant touch of satire--the greedy relatives (the Donati), the starry-eyed lover (Rinuccio), and the resourceful swindler (Schicchi...
Even so, the action is limp through the first ten minutes or so. While the house lights are still up, old Buoso Donati shuffles to his desk and conspicuously examines his will before collapsing into bed and dying, coughing and hacking exaggeratedly all the while--and inauspicious beginning...
...production really hits its stride with the entrance of the protagonist. Saccente's magnetic presence and strong voice are enough to bring order to the haphazard bumbling of the Donati clan. He is a marvel to watch. Taking care to ensure his delivery is clear and comprehensible, he displays a range of gesture and emotion that transcends the handwaving and mugging of some of the smaller roles. Here, we have comic subtlety of the true buffa coin...
...since the comic's creator, Alex Raymond, was the most movieish of illustrators. His space fantasies are replicable on a sound stage, because they consisted largely of art deco architecture, primitive emotions and sexy states of undress. One gets a sense that Production Designer Danilo Donati had fun recreating Raymond's visions, that Writer Semple's script was lettered into balloons, and Director Hodges kept a pile of old comic books on hand to suggest setups...
Directed by MICHAEL ANDERSON Screenplay by LUCIANO VINCENZONi and SERGIO DONATI...