How are Mario Lanzas popular tunes used in the film?
A distinctive musical motif is established with the boisterous popular tunes of Mario Lanza, who is revealed in the opening scenes to be Juliet’s idol. Lanza’s singing comes across as antiseptic but rousing “pop opera,” particularly in contrast with the later use of Puccini arias. Pauline enthusiastically adopts Juliet’s perspective of Lanza as “the world’s greatest tenor” and she sees this shared love of his music to be a kind of confirmation that Pauline and Juliet are spiritual sisters. Lanza’s tunes are used as a barometer of Pauline’s emotions, in her initial captivation with Juliet (prophetically, with “Be My Love”), in her wavering uncertainty and giddy acceptance of Juliet’s flights of fancy (“The Donkey Serenade” from the 1940’s musical “Firefly”), in Pauline’s dawning awareness of her desire for Juliet through her misguided night with John-the-idiot- boarder (in the faint dementia behind “Finiculi, Finicula”) and in Pauline and Juliet’s eventual delerious, romantic consummati
