Phantoms of italian opera-cultural memory in italian and (west) German films

Just as music in film crosses media borders, music as an art form has always transcended national borders. This comparative study of cultural memory and national identity examines Italian and (West) German films from the second half of the twentieth century. Common to these films is the presence on the soundtrack of Italian opera, especially Giuseppe Verdi. Analyses of Bernardo Bertolucci’s La luna (1979, The moon), Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1981), and Alexander Kluge’s Die Macht der Gefühle (1983, The power of emotion) provide a contemporary perspective on Verdi’s reception history as embodied in these films. In foregrounding the artifice of opera, they ironize any unquestioning celebration of Verdi as the politically resonant voice of Italy. What emerges is the operation of an iridescent cultural memory within an opera and film nexus.