Primavera

The Governor of a Venetian orphanage (Andrea Pennacchi) is aware that he is losing his wealthy patrons to another nearby church, so needs to reverse that trend else they are all going be homeless. Luckily, he hears that Antonio Vivaldi (Michele Riondino) isn't having much luck trawling the courts of Europe looking for an home. How about they offer him a residency there and see if his music can reverse their fortunes? Well that might work because this establishment has quite an array of talented musicians from amongst the girls who have been abandoned over the years. Under the austere tutelage of the prioress (Fabrizio Sacchi), the girls assemble for their new maestro and begin to play. "Cecilia" (Tecia Insolia) stands out. Not simply because she is the best, indeed that might well be "Laura" (Hildegard De Stefano), but because she shows spirit. She might as well because her musical career is about to be cut short. She has been swapped by the Governor for 300 gold ducats and so is to marry soldier "Sanfermo" (Stefano Accorsi) who already has two daughters her age! Vivaldi does manage to succeed in bringing in the punters, and that success does give him a degree of leverage over the authorities - especially when he is commanded to write an oratorio for the Doge himself, but is there any future for "Cecilia" or is her fate already sealed? Aside from the plentiful Vivaldi music that litters this stylish production, there is also an engaging and vulnerable effort from an Insolia who embodies well a young woman who gets by day-to-day by writing illicit letters to a mother she has never met whilst dreading the end of a war that will bring her unwanted fiancé back to claim his prize. Times being what they were, her musical enjoyment must end upon her marriage - and that ridulousness is also captured succinctly (and quite brutally) as we head to a denouement that is going to need to melt some hearts if she is to have any hope of escaping her duty. Riondino doesn't really feature so much - indeed Vivaldi himself is but a peripheral character in this story, but that does it no harm as the real focus of the film is a girl who isn't even the mistress of her own lunchtime, let alone her own destiny. The creative design of the film is attractive and detailed and right from the very start, there is a semblance of authenticity to this that has something almost biblical about it's "suffer for your art" message.