Legendary director Franco
Zeffirelli, who celebrated his 96th birthday on February 12,
spoke to ANSA from his home in Rome about his current project, a
staging of La Traviata to open the 2019 Opera Festival on June
21 at the Verona Arena.
"I love everything about La Traviata," Zeffirelli said, with
his two small dogs, Dolly and Blanche, constantly at his feet.
"Violetta is the perfect image of a woman, today and always.
Spending a day with her, you can taste all the flavours of
femininity," he said.
The Verona staging of La Traviata, which Zeffirelli first
imagined in 2008, will run through September.
Zeffirelli has staged the opera eight other times, including
a historic performance in 1958 in Dallas, Texas, with Maria
Callas; and in 1964 at Milan's La Scala opera house conducted by
Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan.
In the past he has staged other operas at the Verona Arena,
including Carmen, Aida, Turandot, Madame Butterfly, Il Trovatore
and Don Giovanni, but he has never presented La Traviata there.
The cast hasn't yet been announced, but Zeffirelli touches
will abound, including an open curtain (which he debuted in 1995
at the staging of Carmen) and on set, the original bed used in
the film version of the opera from 1983.
For this production, the Tuscan director has gathered his
most trusted collaborators, including deputy artistic director
Stefano Trespidi and costume designer Maurizio Millenotti.
The staging also brings him together with a long-time friend,
Verona Arena Foundation superintendent and artistic director
Cecilia Gasdia, to whom he entrusted the role of Violetta in
1984 and other roles throughout the years.
"This show is the crowning of a dream that Zeffirelli has
cultivated for over 10 years," Gasdia said.
"I've worked as a singer my whole life with him, and this is
my chance to give back a gift and pay tribute to him," she said.
"I'm bound to him by a long friendship.
"He has always been a perfectionist. Every time he taught all
of us to look for something we didn't know we had.
"This staging will be respectful of the times and the places
of La Traviata, perfectly dropped into theatrical reality," she
said.
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