Emanuele Luzzati

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Emanuele Luzzati , also called Lele (born June 3, 1921 in Genoa ; † January 26, 2007 ibid), was an Italian painter , graphic artist , set designer , illustrator and animator . His animated short films Pulcinella and La gazza ladra were each nominated for an Oscar .

Live and act

Emanuele Luzzati was born in Genoa in 1921 and first attended the Liceo classico Cristoforo Colombo . Since his father was a "Jew" and the Italian government introduced racial laws ( leggi razziali ) in the late 1930s , the family left Italy and moved to Switzerland. There, Luzzati was able to attend a secondary school and so he graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne . In Lausanne he came into contact with works by director Louis Jouvet and set designer Christian Bérard, among others . According to his own statements, his career aspiration to be a stage designer came about when he was present at rehearsals for the revival of Igor Stravinsky's play Histoire du soldat in 1945 . The performance was characterized by a stylized set that Luzzati took as a model. He then began to experiment with masks and effects. Together with his childhood friend Alessandro Fersen (1911–2001) he performed his first play Salomon and the Queen of Sheba in 1944 at the Lausanne main station. Luzzati designed the set and Fersen directed. After the Second World War, they returned to Italy and also showed the piece in Genoa and Milan .

In 1947, Luzzati and Fersen brought their second piece to the stage, an adaptation of a Hebrew legend called Lea Lebowitz . Luzzati used masks and used fantasy elements for the first time. In 1950 Vittorio Gassman , who had seen Lea Lebowitz , hired him as a make-up and costume designer for a performance of Peer Gynt . Numerous other orders followed. Luzzati finally settled in Genoa. He became a co-founder of the Eleonora Duse Theater, which later became the City Theater of Genoa. Director Aldo Trionfo (1921–1989), whom Luzzati already knew from Lausanne, directed the avant-garde theater group La borsa di Arlecchino in a café in Genoa from 1957 to 1960 , which was dedicated to theater of the absurd . Luzzati got involved as a stage and costume designer and developed his own style. He increasingly used used and accidentally found materials for design. He tailored the costumes at home, sometimes with the help of his mother.

In the 1960s, Luzzati worked with the director Franco Enriquez (1927–1980). With him and the two actors Valeria Moriconi and Glauco Mauri (* 1930) he formed the so-called La Compagnia dei Quattro , which performed numerous classical and contemporary pieces, including Tom Stoppard's Rosenkranz and Güldenstern . Together with Enriquez, Luzzati made his first experiences with staging operas. In 1963 he designed the stage set for the Magic Flute at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival . He then took part in numerous other opera productions, with a particular interest in Rossini's works. In addition to other performances at the Glyndebourne Festival and at leading Italian theaters, he has worked for the Vienna State Opera , the Chicago Opera House and the London Festival Ballet, among others .

Museo Luzzati at Porto Antico

Operas also served Luzzati as models for his cartoons, which he often produced with Giulio Gianini (1927–2009). Her animated short films La gazza ladra and Pulcinella were nominated for an Oscar in the category “ Best Animated Short Film ” in 1966 and 1974 respectively. Luzzati also illustrated thematically matching picture books, including the Magic Flute (1971) and a humorous variant of Cinderella (1976). The latter was also performed on a Teatro della Tosse experimental stage founded by Luzzatti in Genoa in 1976 . In total, he illustrated over 400 books, mainly children's literature.

Luzzati died of a heart attack at the age of 85. He was buried in the monumental cemetery Staglieno .

An extensive exhibition on Luzzati's work is in the Museo Luzzati in Genoa.

Filmography

  • 1959: La tarantella di Pulcinella
  • 1961: I paladini di Francia
  • 1961: Pulcinella: Il gioco dell'oca
  • 1962: Castello di carte
  • 1965: La gazza ladra
  • 1968: L'italiana in Algeri
  • 1970: The Italian in Algiers
  • 1970: Alì Babà
  • 1972: Il viaggio di Marco Polo
  • 1973: Pulcinella
  • 1973: L'augellin Belverde
  • 1974: Turandot
  • 1978: Il flauto magico
  • 1979: I tre fratelli
  • 1981: Pulcinella e il pesce magico
  • 1985: Duetto dei gatti

Stage designs in German-speaking countries

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c John Francis Lane: Emanuele Luzzati. In: The Guardian, April 6, 2007
  2. ^ A b c Anna Zanco Prestel: Emanuele Luzzati (1921-2007): The old master of the Italian theater. israeli-art.com, accessed January 4, 2013.
  3. ↑ Sergio Noberini, Lista cronologica delle Scenografie di Emanuele Luzzati . In: Giorgio Ursini Uršič and Andrea Rauch (ed.), Emanuele Luzzati. Scenografo , Genoa, Tormena, 1996
personal data
SURNAME Luzzati, Emanuele
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lele (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian painter, graphic artist, set designer, illustrator and animator
DATE OF BIRTH June 3, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Genoa
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 2007
Place of death Genoa