Andrea Chenier

The home video release Andrea Chenier constitutes a filmed October 15, 1955 performance of composer Umberto Giordano's titular four-act opera, with famed Italian tenor Mario Del Monaco (1915-82) as the lead. First mounted at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan c. 1896, +Chenier dramatizes the life of the celebrated Eighteenth century Italian poet Andre Chenier, a celebrator of the French Revolution executed at the tail end of the Reign of Terror. This program originally aired on RAI Italian television; here, it appears as it did in the fifties, in the vernacular with no subtitles. The Chorus and Orchestra of RAI provide musical accompaniment, with Angelo Questa conducting. Soprano Antonietta Stella and baritone Giuseppe Taddei co-star in the production.