Rendering 11

The article published on the website http://movies.nytimes.com on May 2, 2013 is headlined
"It’s Tough to Keep a Tune, but Easy to Fall in Love". The article carries a lot of comment on Christopher Menaul’s “1st Night” , which was considred to be a pallid gloss of a work that teems with deception, disguise and mistaken identity, not to mention humor.

The author of the article Stephen Holden supposes that he beauteous Nicoletta (Mía Maestro), who inspired the wager,was a mezzo-soprano recruited by Adam Drummond (Richard E. Grant), a wealthy British industrialist, to perform in an outdoor production of “Così Fan Tutte” at his palatial English country retreat.


Then the author points out that the sole purpose of this vanity project was to give Adam, who dropped onto the lawn in his private helicopter, the chance to play Don Alfonso. And another main character of this film was Tom (Julian Ovenden), the dashing rake with whom he made the bet, was an aspiring opera singer who had talked himself into the cast by claiming to be a protégé of Paolo Prodi (Stanley Townsend), a pompous impresario he had never met. Halfway into his scheme to seduce Nicoletta, he fell in love with her.


It was mentioned that “1st Night” had a glint of social satire. It played as an arch, hammily acted farce that demonstrated the incompatibility of old-fashioned stage acting with modern film technique.

The article concludes by saying that 1st Night was opened on Friday in Manhattanwith Richard E. Grant (Adam Drummond), Sarah Brightman (Celia), Mía Maestro (Nicoletta Lampedusa), Julian Ovenden (Tom Chambers), Oliver Dimsdale (Philip Ford), Susannah Fielding (Debbie Drew), Nigel Lindsay (Martin Mays), Stanley Townsend (Paolo Prodi) and Emma Williams (Tamsin Ford).

As for me, I can't share the author's view as I have not seen " 1st Night" yet. Anyway I found this article very useful and of good value. The message of the author was clear to understand a plot and character characteristics of the film.