On this tape Franco is very much himself. He sings to the audience as he sang to me in his living room--with the same gestures and mannerisms. And they love it! He flings himself into the encores with wild abandon. Gives spinal chills. The most personality of any Corelli video. Listen to Corelli play with the tempo in Ernesto De Curtis"s "Tu ca nun chiagne." He introduces ritards and accelerations. Or listen to F. Paolo Tosti"s "A Vucchella," where Corelli twice eases back into tempo after (unduly) long fermatas. Yet he told me, "I didn"t do rubato for fear of being squadrato [not with the conductor"s beat]." In this concert he is squadrato in "O paradiso," on the word "paradiso." The reality may have been that he was willing to sing with flexibility of tempo when with piano accompaniment, as in the De Curtis and Tosti songs, in which he sings with piano after the orchestra has left the stage.--Stefan Zucker