The 1913 melodrama Ma l'amor mio non muore / Love Everlasting, starring super-diva Lyda Borelli, will be screened on Tuesday, May 13 at 7pm at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).
Why a silent movie screening at an academy of music, of all places?
Well, perhaps because Lyda Borelli (1884–1959) plays a singer in the film. (According to film historian Greta De Groat, "Borellismo was a word used in Italy in the teens to describe the Lyda Borelli craze.")
In any case, the screening won't be really silent. Donald Sosin will provide live piano accompaniment, and there'll be a post-screening Q&A with author Angela Della Vacche, who'll talk about her new book Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema (University of Texas Press).
Directed by Mario Caserini, and written by Emiliano Bonetti and Giovanni Monleone, Love Everlasting tells the story of an singer who falls tragically in love with a prince. (The poor thing was unaware of her lover's blue-bloodness.) Also in the cast, Mario Bonnard (as the prince), Gian Paolo Rosmino, and Vittorio Rossi Pianelli.
You can buy tickets online for the show. For more information, call 718.636.4100.
They should also show one with Francesca Bertini. She must have played some opera singer or other.