FRanco Zeffirelli passed away in his home in Rome at the age of 96. The screenwriter, actor and director was remembered on the website of the foundation that bears his name. “Franco Zeffirelli passed away peacefully a few minutes ago. – we read on the portal – He was born in Florence 96 years ago. His death occurred at the end of a long illness. The master will rest in the Porte Sante cemetery in Florence”. The funeral chapel, for the last farewell, should be held on Monday 17 June in the Campidoglio. His latest direction was a new Traviata, which will also open the Opera Festival season at the Verona Arena next week, on June 21st. On September 17, 2020, Rigoletto was scheduled to debut in Oman, at the Royal Opera House in Muscat. He took his first steps in cinema as assistant director to Visconti in La terra trema and Senso, as well as to Antonio Pietrangeli in Il sole negli occhi (1953). In the 1950s he made his debut as a director, both in theatre and cinema. In the 1954s, he directed La Cenerentola (XNUMX) at La Scala. Among others, L'elisir d'amore (1955) and Don Pasquale (1959). In 1958 he was at the Teatro Verdi in Trieste with Manon Lescaut and at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London in 1959 with Lucia di Lammermoor also brought on tour to the King's Theatre in Edinburgh in 1961, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci. He made his debut on the big screen with Camping (1957). Towards the end of the 1967s he attracted international attention in the cinematographic field thanks to two Shakespearean transpositions: The Taming of the Shrew (1968) and Romeo and Juliet (XNUMX). In 1966 he made a documentary about the Florence flood entitled Per Firenze. In the 1964s Zeffirelli directed some memorable shows in the history of Italian theatre, such as Hamlet with Giorgio Albertazzi, also performed in London on the occasion of the Shakespearean celebrations for the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of the great playwright (XNUMX), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Enrico Maria Salerno and Sarah Ferrati, The She-Wolf by Giovanni Verga with Anna Magnani. In 1971 he directed Brother Sun, Sister Moon, a poetic reenactment of the life of Francis of Assisi. On December 7, 1976, he directed and created the sets for a historic edition of Otello by Giuseppe Verdi that inaugurated the opera season at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, conducted by Carlos Kleiber and starring Plácido Domingo, Mirella Freni and Piero Cappuccilli. The opera is broadcast live by Rai for the first time. In 1981 he directed Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci at La Scala, in 1983 he staged Turandot by Giacomo Puccini at the Teatro alla Scala, and Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello. In 1994 he was elected senator of the republic on the Forza Italia list. Between 1996 and 1999 he directed the films Jane Eyre and Tea with Mussolini, the latter partially autobiographical. On 24 November 2004, Queen Elizabeth II appointed him a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE). In 2006 he curated his fifth production of Aida starring Violeta Urmana for the inauguration of the Teatro alla Scala.
Article published on 15 June 2019 - 14:23
