Severin Films and Jess Franco compose a SINFONIA EROTICA on Blu-ray from Severin Films.

Returning from the hospital after a nervous breakdown, Martine de Bressac (Lina Romay, FEMALE VAMPIRE) discovers that her husband Armand (Armando Borges) has taken a male lover (actually another) in young Flor (Mel Rodrigo, TWO SPIES WITH FLOWERED PANTIES). Despite the insistence of faithful housekeeper Wanda (Aida Gouveia, LOVE LETTERS OF A PORTUGUESE NUN) that her husband is tarnishing her reputation and she should not stand for it, Martine is so hopelessly in love with Armando that she seems resigned to the humiliation (especially as she is already dying from a congenital disease). When Armand and Flor come across beaten and unconscious novice Norma (Susan Hemingway, WOMEN IN CELLBLOCK 9), they surmise that she has run off with a young man who promised to love her but then dumped her after she gave up her virginity, and proceed to molest her with the threat of sending her back to the convent unless she submits to them sexually. Mad with desire and sexually frustrated, Martine discovers Armand in bed with Flor and still wants him. When Armand dismisses her and tells her to try bedding Norma instead, she takes him up on the offer but it is actually a trap to put more strain on her heart as she grows more desperate and suffers another breakdown. After learning from Dr. Louys (Albino Graziani, DIAMONDS OF KILIMANJARO) that too much stimulation of any kind could kill Martine, Armand presses upon the man his obligation to exonerate him of any responsibility when Martine dies but the doctor has other plans. When Wanda overhears Armand, Flor, and Norma plotting to kill Martine, she may not have the opportunity to warn her mistress.

Director Jess Franco's first Sadeian film produced in and for his native Spain – not counting the Harry Alan Towers-produced JUSTINE which was partially shot in Spain but unreleasable there during the reign of General Francisco Franco – SINFONIA EROTICA expands upon an episode in de Sade's novel JUSTINE in which Bressac tried to get the heroine to assist in poisoning his mother. Franco makes Martine's victim the wife of Bressac and the heroine while the Justine equivalent of Norma becomes a more functional character along with Flor whose potential for redemption by falling in love with one another is mechanical but fulfills the requirements of melodrama. While there is plenty of nudity, some explicit lesbian sex, and some surprisingly graphic but simulated gay sex, Franco not only show restraint by not staging his first sex scene until roughly twenty minutes into the film but also makes the viewer feel Martine's frustration (especially seasoned Franco fans with the oddity of Romay remaining clothed for so long). The finale references both DIABOLIQUE as well as the climaxes of Franco's own SUCCUBUS and THE HOT NIGHTS OF LINDA. Functioning as his own camera operator, Franco frames characters through star filters and his lens is frequently drawn to reflective surfaces from mirrors to windows with longing glances out at the sea or a castle on the mountain past the estate – both of which lend a somewhat tropical atmosphere to a film that appears to be set in France physically (as well as historically with Armand mentioning the growing tendency of civil servants to denigrate the aristocracy) – and light sources that catch the star filter in front of the lens as fetchingly as a highlight in a pool of blood during the climax. Made for very little money, Franco wrings much production value out of the palatial location and grounds as well as the costumes and set furnishings provided by Portugal's theater craftspeople. Daniel White is not credited, but Jess Franco provides a White-like score that incorporates a piece by Franz Liszt.

Largely unreleased outside of Spain, with the only English-friendly release on the bootleg circuit sourced from an Italian-dubbed print which reportedly took liberties with the dialogue, SINFONIA EROTICA first became widely available on Spanish DVD from Manga Films featuring a non-anamorphic 1.66:1 letterboxed transfer with only Spanish audio. The deliberately soft photography did the tape-mastered image no favors but it was workable for the time. As with THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME, SINFONIA EROTICA has been sourced from a 4K scan of a 35mm print. The damage on this print is not as noticeable as with the former film for the most part, and the resolution that one can actually see the brief moments in which the shifting focus was sharp before going soft. What looks like fading in the blown-out sunny highlights in some shots is also deliberate, as "Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco" author Stephen Thrower reveals in his piece on the film that credited cinematographer Juan Solar (BLOODY MOON) lit the film and set the exposure for interiors and complained when Franco would then point the camera at brighter daylight shining through windows or move the camera outside without readjusting the exposure – as well as not caring about the color temperature being balanced for interiors and exteriors – which Franco dismissed as being "more modern." The sole audio track is a relatively clean Spanish LPCM 2.0 mono track which is entirely dubbed and features a lot of echo and reverberation that are part of the film's sound design. Optional subtitles seem mostly accurate apart from a moment when they have Norma addressing Martine as "marquis" rather than "marquise."