Italian opera from Tosca to Otello on screen in Toronto

Toronto, Jan 7 - Italian opera makes an appearance in Toronto to brighten up the Canadian winter, with three evenings at the Alliance Francaise theatre organised by the the Italian Cultural Institute. The evenings will be devoted to some of the most famous Italian opera composers and their works. They begin on Tuesday, Jan. 19 with Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, and the screening of the second act of the opera, directed by Franco Zeffirelli at Covent Garden in London in 1964, with Renato Cioni and Tito Gobbi. It will be preceded by the 1987 documentary "Maria Callas: Life and Art", directed by Alan Lewens, Alistair Mitchell, with Maria Callas, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Carlo Maria Giulini and Franco Zeffirelli. It will be repeated on Feb. 16 with the screening of a recording of Otello by Giuseppe Verdi, conducted by Riccardo Muti with Placido Domingo, Leo Nucci and Brabara Frittoli, accompanied by the La Scala theatre orchestra and chorus, with Graham Vick behind the camera. It will then be the turn of Verdi's Falstaff on Mar. 22, again directed by Muti, with the La Scala theatre Orchestra and Chorus. Ambrogio Maestri, Roberto Frontali, Juan Diego Flores and Barbara Frittoli were on stage. The opera was performed at the Busseto Opera House with the original set of 1913. (AGI) . .