Michael Draine's Twisted Vista

Edda Dell’Orso

Al Cinema con Edda Dell’Orso

(Hexacord)

Dream Within a Dream: The Incredible Voice

of Edda Dell’Orso (El/Cherry Red)

Acclaimed as “the voice of Italian cinema,”

Edda Dell’Orso’s haunting, wordless

vocals have stood the test of time as the

very embodiment of romance and

longing. Prior to the release of these two

compilations, Signora Dell’Orso’s

appearances on disc were confined

to rare, sublime moments on elusive

Italian soundtracks. Spanning the late

‘60s and early ‘70s, the moods

on these two collections range

from carefree heights to the

mysterious depths of the supernatural.

The 23-cut Al Cinema con Edda

Dell’Orso represents many of Italy’s

greatest film composers: Ennio

Music Review Index

Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Roberto

Pregardio, Piero Piccioni, Armando

Trovaioli, Luis Bacalov, and

Berto Pisano. Each composer appears

Twisted Cinema

equally attuned to Dell’Orso’s unique

gifts, yielding a seamless program. It’s

fascinating to compare Edda’s

wordless take of Piero Piccioni’s “La

Volpe dalla coda di veluto” with Shawn

Robinson's pop version on Beat at

Cinecitta Vol. 3. Each rendition reveals

the singers’ respective strengths:

Edda’s ethereal sexuality, Robinson’s

earthy soul. Edda’s tremulous voice

on Piero Piccioni’s “Lo Straniero” recalls

Miklós Rózsa’s use of the Theremin

on The Lost Weekend, and three

a cappella tracks reveal her flawless

pitch. The minimal instrumentation of Piero

Piccioni’s exotica theme to Ciao, Gulliver

(1970) exposes the bare beauty of Edda’s

quavering voice. With eight strong previously

unreleased cuts, Al Cinema keeps re-

dundancy with prior compilations to a mini-

mum: Morricone’s “Verushka” from Main

Titles Vol. 1 and Women in Lounge,

and the graceful “Kill! (To Jean),” on

Easy Tempo Vol. 8.

Al Cinema con Edda Dell’Orso is a

bel canto requiem for the hedonism and

romance of the swinging ‘60s. A meticu-

lous transfer captures the high production

values and spacious, psychedelic

character of the original recordings.

While Al Cinema sports spectacular

cover graphics, Hexacord provides only

the most skeletal track list. El/Cherry

Red’s Dream Within a Dream:

The Incredible Voice of Edda Dell’Orso

emphasizes the singer’s connection with

Ennio Morricone by devoting 11 of its 17

tracks to Morricone compositions. Morricone

takes Edda’s breathy vocals to experimental

extremes in the Argento soundtracks,

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

and Four Flies On Gray Velvet

as well as on a lengthy, psychedelic

suite from Ecce Homo (1968). While the

Morricone/Argento collaborations have their

adherents, these ventures into atonality have

not aged as well as Morricone and Dell’Orso’s

jet-set pop. Two go-go tunes from Anton Garcia

Abril & Marcello Giombini’s 4-3-2-1 Morte

(Mission Stardust, 1967) demonstrate her

ability to electrify even mediocre material,

while three selections from Piccioni’s sublime

Scacco Alla Regina finds Edda at her most

seductive. Italy’s premiere horror sound-

track/progressive rock band Goblin provides

Mellotron and guitar accompaniment on an

outstanding track from Perché si

uccidono (1976). Dream Within a Dream

includes a handful of frequently antholo-

logized Morricone themes from

from Metti una Sera Cena,

La Donna Invisible, and Gui’ la

Testa (A Fistful of Dynamite). The

widely available A Fistful Of Dollars and

The Good the Bad and the Ugly are

wisely excluded from both compilations.

Venturing deep into the obscure and

unobtainable, Hexacord’s Al Cinema

con Edda Dell’Orso will abundantly

reward the aficionado, whereas

Dream Within a Dream welcomes the

newcomer to the luxurious pleasures of

Euro-lounge.