The Splendor That Was Rome
Quo Vadis and I go back a long way. About the middle of the last century MGM released two recordings from this film. One was a dialogue highlights album in which, I admit, I have no interest. I want Rozsa's score. MGM also released a 10-in LP, long out of print. It also came out as a 78RPM album. I found one at a sale back around 1972 or 1973. Sadly, the first disk had a small chip on the edge, but the others were in pretty good shape so I was able to make do. An new recording conducted by Miklos Rozsa with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus released in the seventies or early eighties was, to me, a disappointment. The poor mixing made it impossible to catch any of the lyrics sung by the chorus and, I seem to recall, the tempo was too slow. Quo Vadis was based on a novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz set during the reign of the Emperor Nero. Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn, and Peter Ustinov. Genn, as Petronius and Ustinov as Nero stole the show, and