I wonder if the ending should have shown the quartet performing rather than being heard off screen
shareThat was the only part of the movie that disappointed me. They spent the whole film working up to an event that we never saw.
Other than that, the film was really enjoyable. I loved it!
I interpreted as letting the audience (us) hear the characters as they were in their youth or their imaginations. A little bit of fantasy. If we had actually seen the real performance, their voices would have {and should have} been rougher, a little disappointing. My guess is that it was the directors choice. Jean Horton's fear was that she'd never again sound as good as she did in her youth. By the end of the movie, she did.
shareI agree with smeth. Also you can't ask actors to lipsynch Italian opera - they can't do it. Opera singers can do it, but actors can't.
The Maggie Smith character, if she was Maggie Smith's age, is only two years older than Gwyneth Jones, who did sing Vissi d'Arte. The characters could have sung the quartet, and again, as smeth said, it would have been rough. And the Maggie character could never have taken the high note at the end. The vocal cords thicken with age and you lose your high notes.
You're right.
I think this is the reason that Beverly Sills gave when she decided it was time for her to retire. And she made it stick, too. None of that "Please, just one more aria." nonsense. She did not want to be heard trying to hit notes she couldn't sing any more.
very true. Often singers who want to continue their careers past a certain point go into a different repertoire - the spinto, dramatic, and even the big-sounding lyric sopranos may start to sing high mezzo, for instance, and a coloratura will take on lyric soprano roles if they have the middle voice. Sometimes as you get older, the middle warms up and opens up.
Sills I think was really ready to retire. She told a friend of mine, in relation to singing somewhere, "if I do that, then it will start all over again." You know, at a certain point, one gets tired.