Time.news – There is Franco Zeffirelli bent over to design precious and sumptuous stage clothesoften next to his ‘friend’ Maria Callas, or in the hall, among the purple velvets of Piermarini, with the camera intent on filming. And again, the director portrayed in playful situations with all the artists and workers involved in his shows, “the big family”.
There are some of his most beautiful costumes, and even a video documentary, which tells of his journey between the opera and the screen. The exhibition “Franco Zeffirelli – Gli anni alla Scala” designed for the centenary of his birth, set up in the halls of the Theater Museum of the Teatro alla Scala, curated by Vittoria Crespi Morbio (open until 31 August) is rich and interesting.
The director of the museum, Donatella Brunazzia true Verona institution for 25 years, that Zeffirelli knew him well, takes Time.news by the hand, room after room and tells us the lesser-known side of the master, “extremely empathic, brilliant inventor of pop opera”.
With this exhibition “We wanted to bring out the great humanity of Franco Zeffirelli – Brunazzi tells us – who had a marked predisposition for relationships. He knew all the workers by name. He created a strong sense of belonging in the theater and around the show. It has always been a feature” of him.
So much so that at the opening of the exhibition “there was a sort of pilgrimage by the workers who have been here for years, and had known him. He was truly a unique character, which is part of La Scala’s DNA”.
On the other hand here, he staged 21 titles, from the costumes for L’italiana in Algeri directed by Pavolini in 1953, to Aida directed by Riccardo Chailly on December 7, 2006, passing through legendary shows such as Il Turco in Italia with Callas, la Bohème born with Karajan (“His Bohème will be revived at La Scala on March 4th”), Othello directed by Kleiber which was the first “Prima” on live television, Cavalleria rusticana in theater and film, the fairy-tale and celestial Turandot with Maazel , the monumental Don Carlo with Muti.
Returning to the exhibition, the objective “is to go beyond the director’s scenic art tout court, to trace his personality. And in reality, behind his facade as a great preserver of tradition – he underlines – there is a great innovator. And this is what we wanted to focus on”. Franco Zeffirelli has “invented pop opera. He brought opera for the first time from the stage of La Scala to the small screen, to television and then even to the cinema”.
This sensitivity of his as a communicator is highlighted by the “first photo we see as we climb the stairs: which shows Zeffirelli from behind, in the theatre, while he is rehearsing, with the camera next to him. And in the last hall, there is a picture with the same scene, but here the director is filming. He was with Placido Domingo in the film Cavalleria rusticana ”. But be careful “he did not submit opera direction to television direction, he enriched both. He was the first to do it ”.
The museum displays sketches, fashion plates, photographs and costumes that retrace Zeffirelli’s journey to Piermarini. On one wall there are the hats and masks of Turandot’s armigers, “he had taken them from Cinecittà, from the film Marco Polo by Giuliano Montaldo”. “His spasmodic attention to detail can be seen in the clothes. In the first room there are those of the show Lo frate ‘nnamorato, from 1960, they are made of jute, he anticipated eco-sustainable fashion”.
To remember that Zeffirelli “initially was a set and costume designer, he began as an assistant to Luchino Visconti. He immediately understood that he had a very pronounced creative and artistic talent, he told him ‘you were born in Florence, I understand that you have this marked sensitivity for beauty’”.
His particular relationship “with Maria Callas, a fraternal relationship” also emerges from the exhibition, there is a room dedicated to the costumes of the Turk in Italy, worn by the divine. “One of the works where he is already a director and we see the playful complicity between him and Callas”. A curiosity: “precisely for Callas, Zeffirelli clashed with her great master, because Visconti considered her a creature of hers and felt defrauded. But on the other hand she had a relationship of subjection with Visconti”, while there was harmony with Zeffirelli. But now it’s not like her character was all honey.
“He’s a multifaceted character. He also made some crazy rants. Placido Domingo recounts that in one of Carmen’s rehearsals at one point he said ‘the rehearsal is over and she went away’. He disappeared for three days. When he returned Domingo asked him what had bothered him, and he “needed a smoke break”.