@fondazionefrancozeffirelli FONDAZIONE FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI ONLUS Sunday, October 1, 2017 Open Day of the Franco Zeffirelli International Centre for the Performing Arts. Experience the Maestro’s 70-year career with the Museum’s permanent and temporary exhibitions.
Of course, if Peachy ever visits, she will be wearing Mover and Shaker Emilio Cavallini.
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FONDAZIONE FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI ONLUS
Sunday, October 1, 2017 Open Day
of the Franco Zeffirelli International Centre for the Performing Arts.
Experience the Maestro’s 70-year career
with the Museum’s permanent and temporary exhibitions.
The Franco Zeffirelli International Centre for the Performing Arts (ICPA) opens its doors to the public with its first Open Day, on Sunday, October 1, from 10am to 6pm, at the San Firenze Complex (Piazza San Firenze 5, Florence).
The same day, the Fondazione Zeffirelli will host a charity initiative in support of the Andrea Bocelli Foundation, to which the public can offer a donation.
The Open Day will be an opportunity to visit the Museum and admire the vast collection of scene and costume sketches, drawings, photographs and everything else that faithfully documents the 60 years of Maestro Zeffirelli’s work in cinema, theatre and opera.
The Museum, curated by Carlo Centolavigna, Caterina d'Amico and Pippo Zeffirelli, will be open regularly from Monday to Wednesday and from Friday to Sunday, from 10am to 6pm; the museum will remain closed on Thursday. Ticket prices will be 10 euro (full price) and 7 euro (reduced price).
Over the course of his long career, Franco Zeffirelli, writer, scenographer, costume designer and director, produced 18 films, staged 31 theatre performances and brought to life more than 100 operatic works, all fruit of a professionalism that was built with commitment and rigor from his days as a young actor and his studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti and his love for music. His creations are both elaborate and patient constructions, the combination of an intuition based on wisdom and depth.
The Museum at the International Centre for the Performing Arts was created primarily as apermanent exhibition dedicated to his work.
Beginning in 1948, the exhibition explores the fundamental stages of Zeffirelli's stunning international career, made all the more exciting by the intense friendships he had with the greatest artists. First and foremost, Maria Callas, who, under the direction of Zeffirelli, performed masterpieces by Verdi, Puccini, Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti. Alongside priceless sketches and photographs of the scenes is a costume worn by the Divina in Turco in Italia (courtesy of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan).
The exhibition is divided into 20 chapters, more than half of them dedicated to opera. Four rooms are dedicated to composers (Pergolesi, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini and Barber) and another seven monographic rooms are dedicated to the works that Zeffirelli revisited most often over the years, each time creating a different stagecraft: Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, Falstaff, La Traviata, Aida, Turandot, Carmen and Don Giovanni.
Of the other chapters, the first two that open the museum recall his encounters with Luchino Visconti and Maria Callas. Two more are dedicated to classical and modern theatre, and illustrate Zeffirelli’s commitment to revitalizing the great classical theatre (especially those set in Italy, like Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing and Lorenzaccio) and promoting Italian dramaturgy abroad (Verga, Pirandello and Eduardo de Filippo). Four chapters cover his most important cinematographic works: films based on literary works (Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Sparrow), opera films (Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, La Traviata and Othello), religious films (Brother Sun, Sister Moon and Jesus of Nazareth) and autobiographical films (Tea with Mussolini and Callas Forever).
At the heart of the exhibition is a large room with Zeffirelli’s 55 original drawings for the cinematographic transposition of Dante’s Inferno, an unrealized project of great international co-production that Zeffirelli worked on with enthusiasm in 1972. They are displayed with a multimedia installation by Daniele Nannuzzi and FXLab, which digitally re-elaborates the preparatory studies for the setting of the film’s various scenes.
Almost 300 scenes and costume sketches by Zeffirelli are on display, along with posters, flyers, scene photography that capture the performances, as well as snapshots taken off stage or during rehearsals, 14 costumes and six scene models that recall the artistic climate in the most eloquent way and highlight the most significant elements time and again. All the works exhibited are accompanied by captions in Italian and English and by labels stating the place, date and cast of the shows and films.
The permanent exhibition is accompanied by a video, screened in a room located at the midway point: The Art of Entertainment by Pippo Zeffirelli.
A temporary exhibition, honouring a prominent performing arts personality, will always accompany the permanent exhibition. For the Center’s opening, this honour will be bestowed to Lila de Nobili, the internationally acclaimed painter, illustrator and set and costume designer, and a great friend and collaborator of Zeffirelli.
On display are 28 never-before-seen gouaches from the Zeffirelli Collection.
The renovation, restoration and set-up of the Museum were carried out by the architects Marco G.L. Paolieri ad Fabio Valelá.
Click here to download a description of the Museum.
INFORMATION ABOUT ICPA
The International Centre for the Performing Arts was made possible thanks to the Fondazione Franco Zeffirelli Onlus, which made available the Archive, Library and all materials documenting the long and varied career of Franco Zeffirelli in the world of performing arts. The Foundation has been supported by the City of Florence and the financial contributions of the Russian entrepreneur Mikhail Kusnirovich, of the Gum Department Store in Red Square, Moscow and the brand Bosco Ciliegi Family, and the family of the American-Canadian financier Robert Friedland. Franco Zeffirelli serves as the Foundation’s President, while Gianni Letta is Honorary President and Pippo Corsi Zeffirelli acts as Vice-President.
Website: www.fondazionefrancozeffirelli.com
FB: @fondazionefrancozeffirelli
