Franco Zeffirelli

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Franco Zeffirelli (2008)

Franco Zeffirelli [ˈfraŋko dzeffiˈrɛlli] ( real name : Gianfranco Corsi ; born February 12, 1923 in Florence , † June 15, 2019 in Rome ) was an Italian director for film , theater and opera . He became internationally known for his lavish opera productions and his award-winning Shakespeare films, among other things .

Life

Franco Zeffirelli was born in 1923 as illegitimate child of a cloth merchant and a costume designer. As it became known in April 2016, Zeffirelli was closely related to Leonardo da Vinci ; an ancestor of Zeffirelli married Teresa Alessandra da Vinci, a descendant of Leonardo da Vinci's sister, in 1794. Zeffirelli's mother died when he was six and his father did not recognize him as a legitimate son until he was 16. He grew up in the English-speaking environment of the Scorpioni . Zeffirelli attended the Accademia di Belle Arti and studied art and architecture at the University of Florence during the war years . In 1946 he joined the theater company of Luchino Visconti , Paolo Stoppa and Rina Morelli . Visconti exerted great influence on his assistant Zeffirelli and also had a love affair with Zeffirelli in private. He later worked with other great directors such as Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini before he could make a name for himself.

Since the 1950s, Zeffirelli has been an important stage director for operas, where he was also responsible for costumes and sets. He has worked at La Scala in Milan , the Vienna State Opera , the Metropolitan Opera , the Arena di Verona and the Comédie-Française , among others . A good friend of his was the opera singer Maria Callas , with whom he worked several times. Many of his designs for opera productions have become known worldwide and are still performed today. His lavish, rather classically designed productions are reminiscent of the opulence of the Roman Catholic Church and were popular with the public, although they are not undisputed by critics.

Some of his operas have also been filmed for cinema and television: together with Gianni Quaranta , he received the British Academy Film Award in the category Best Production Design in 1984 for his work on the opera film La Traviata .

Zeffirelli made his first feature film in 1958. He became known as a film director for two Shakespeare films in the late 1960s : in 1967 he directed The Taming of the Shrew with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the leading roles, and a year later Romeo and Juliet with Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey . The latter is often considered the most successful film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet . For Romeo and Juliet he received an Oscar nomination for Best Director and David di Donatello and Nastro d'Argento for Best Director. Zeffirelli also attracted a lot of attention with his star-studded film adaptation of the Bible, Jesus of Nazareth, in 1977. His trip to Hollywood with the films The Champ (1979) and Endless Love (1981), however, received largely negative reviews from the critics. In 1990 he directed Hamlet with Mel Gibson in the lead role. The last feature-length films directed by Zeffirelli, Tee mit Mussolini (1999) and Callas Forever (2002), were characterized by autobiography .

Zeffirelli was also politically active. He sat for two legislative terms, from 1994 to 2001 , for Silvio Berlusconi's center-right Forza Italia in the Senate . Although Zeffirelli was homosexual, the avowed Catholic supported the statements of the Catholic Church on homosexuality . Despite health problems, he was virtually until his death still active as an artist, he worked on productions in Verona in the summer of 2019 and at the Royal Opera House in Oman early 2020. In his production of Verdi's Il trovatore had Anna Netrebko 2019 her stage debut at the Arena from Verona .

Zeffirelli received the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1977 , the Medaglia d'oro ai benemeriti della cultura e dell'arte in 2003 and the British Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 2004 .

Filmography (selection)

Autobiography

  • Zeffirelli. Autobiography by Franco Zeffirelli. Piper-Verlag, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-492-03130-7 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Italian director Franco Zeffirelli is dead. In: ORF . June 15, 2019, accessed June 15, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Family tree : Historians claim to have found living descendants of Leonardo da Vinci. In: Spiegel Online . April 15, 2016, accessed June 16, 2016 .
  3. ^ A b c John Hooper: A fighter at the opera. In: theguardian.com . November 25, 2006, accessed August 21, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Dan Lybarger: Spreading the Gospel Wrong: An Interview with Franco Zeffirelli. In: tipjar.com. March 13, 1999, accessed June 16, 2019 .
  5. ^ Franco Zeffirelli. In: Allmovie . Retrieved June 16, 2019 .
  6. ^ Rachel Donadio: Maestro Still Runs the Show, Grandly. In: nytimes.com . August 18, 2009, accessed January 4, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Zeffirelli brings new Rigoletto production to Oman. In: Salzburger Nachrichten. November 7, 2018. Retrieved November 23, 2018 . Jörg Seißelberg: Italian director Zeffirelli has died. In: tagesschau.de . June 15, 2019, accessed June 16, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Le onorificenze della Repubblica Italiana. In: quirinale.it. April 2, 2003, accessed June 16, 2019 (Italian).
personal data
SURNAME Zeffirelli, Franco
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Corsi, Gianfranco (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian director
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Florence , Italy
DATE OF DEATH June 15, 2019
Place of death Rome