Franco Zeffirelli

A very special opera queen episode profiling an opera queen gone wrong: the Italian opera and film director (of 1968's famous Romeo and Juliet) who fought fascists as a partisan in the hills over Florence, mingled with Visconti and Cocteau and Marais and Chanel, and directed Callas in many of her mid-career triumphs before beginning to harden his style from lush realism to a celebration of set decoration above all. Zeffirelli, born at a time when the last composers whose works still fill the grand opera repertory were dying, faced, like all practitioners of the operatic arts in the 20th century, a choice between making living theatre or dead, ten-ton museum pieces. He chose the museum-piece approach and in so doing did tremendous artistic damage.

CONTENT WARNING: THIS EPISODE DISCUSSES CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE AND RACIST LANGUAGE.

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See Callas in Tosca in 1964 here (youtube.com/watch?v=xnFlg1z1hPc&t=1041s).

See Leontyne Price's costumes for Antony and Cleopatra here (operaqueen.tumblr.com/post/169681783038/leonty…) and here. (operaqueen.tumblr.com/post/169681783038/leonty…)

See Zeffirelli's MET Opera Turandot set here (nytimes.com/2021/10/13/arts/music/met-opera-tu…).

See Waltraud Meier sing the Liebestod here (youtube.com/watch?v=M3qmXZ65JdY).

SOURCES:

Duane Byrge, “Franco Zeffirelli, Oscar-Nominated Director for ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ Dies at 96,” The Hollywood Reporter (blog), June 15, 2019, hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/franco…

Rachel Donadio, “Maestro Still Runs the Show, Grandly,” The New York Times, August 18, 2009, sec. Arts, nytimes.com/2009/08/19/arts/music/19zeffirelli…

Roger Ebert, “Romeo and Juliet Movie Review (1968) | Roger Ebert,” accessed January 31, 2022, rogerebert.com/reviews/romeo-and-juliet-1968

Johanna Fiedler, Molto Agitato: The Mayhem behind the Music at the Metropolitan Opera (New York: Anchor Books, 2003)

Jonathan Kandell, “Franco Zeffirelli, Italian Director With Taste for Excess, Dies at 96,” The New York Times, June 15, 2019, sec. Arts, nytimes.com/2019/06/15/arts/music/franco-zeffi…

Rebecca Keegan, “The Dark Side of Franco Zeffirelli: Abuse Accusers Speak Out Upon the Famed Director’s Death,” The Hollywood Reporter (blog), June 18, 2019, hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/franco…

Wayne Koestenbaum, The Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire (London: Da Capo Press, 2001)

Barbara McMahon, “Zeffirelli Tells All about Priest’s Sexual Assault,” The Guardian, November 21, 2006, sec. World news, theguardian.com/world/2006/nov/21/books.film

Peter Murphy, “Bruce Robinson Interview,” The New Review, accessed January 31, 2022, web.archive.org/web/20070707184620/http://www.…

John J. O’Connor, “TV Review; Zeffirelli’s Lavish ‘Turandot’ at the Met Opera,” The New York Times, January 27, 1988, sec. Arts, nytimes.com/1988/01/27/arts/tv-review-zeffirel…

Neda Ulaby, “Franco Zeffirelli, Creator Of Lavish Productions On Screen And Stage, Dies At 96,” NPR, June 15, 2019, sec. Obituaries, npr.org/2019/06/15/514094174/franco-zeffirelli…

Daniel J. Wakin, “For Opening Night at the Metropolitan, a New Sound: Booing,” The New York Times, September 22, 2009, sec. Arts, nytimes.com/2009/09/23/arts/music/23opera.html

Franco Zeffirelli, Zeffirelli: The Autobiography of Franco Zeffirelli, 1st American ed (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986)

“Opera: ‘Falstaff’ Staged by Zeffirelli; New Production of the Met Is Magnificent; Bernstein Conducts —Colzani in Title Role,” The New York Times, March 7, 1964, sec. Archives, nytimes.com/1964/03/07/archives/opera-falstaff…

Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix (freemusicarchive.org/music/Yan_Terrien/Piano_L…) by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner. (soundcloud.com/oswellm)

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