E avanti a lui fischiava tutta Roma
“A Zeffirelli, dopo le polemiche della vigilia che lo hanno opposto al soprano Daniela Dessì, da lui ritenuta non giusta per il ruolo di Violetta in questa Traviata, qualche dissenso misto agli applausi al momento di comparire in proscenio assieme a Gelmetti.” [Il Messaggero]
On the other hand, maybe the dissenters were disgruntled canary fanciers?
On 18 December 2009, the opening night of the production, there was no ‘high E flat’. In the Rome theatre, Zeffirelli’s foes were immediately ready to point out that to please the director, second-choice singers had been hired.
Judy was Franco’s Juliet in that thrilling and for its time daring staging of Romeo and Juliet for the Old Vic. It created an international sensation and put Judy on the map as a star. I saw it as a youngster in Philly three times (they toured it everywhere) and have never forgotten the hot Italian lighting, the wild staging, the adolescent (and more moving for that) emotional outpourings and of course the sex, and homoerotic subtext between Romeo and his boys with Tybalt as a cocksman. I’m not sure Franco ever matched that in the spoken theater.
Just as the amazing 64 Met Falstaff (Bernstein am pult) was one of a kind — a fantastic staging, very funny but with the pathos and fantasy that are part of the opera. I don’t think he’s ever matched that in opera either.
Dame Judy probably felt she owed him one. But the movie of Romeo was grossly sentimental (with Judy replaced by Olivia Hussey), insensitively cut with rip offs from the far braver Pasolini who was willing to cast the very young undressed in really erotic sequences (Pasolini had balls, Franco is a cunt). Franco was no doubt happy Pasolini was killed horribly. Franco’s other movies are corrupt displays of bad taste and inconsequentiality — in the awful Traviata film Violetta’s apartments are so overstuffed she looks to be dying of terminal bric a brac, not TB. There are the horrendous musical cuts there and in the Otello film. Like Tomassini in performing analingus on an unwashed Jimmy about Hoffman, Franco would assert that Verdi would approve, as opposed to striking him dead.
In opera Franco has been doing recycled nonsense for ever and yes the ‘cows’ are ridiculous as is the insensitive and stupid Carmen and the preposterously overstuffed and fraudulent Tosca, a Boheme that entirely misses the intimacy of the work, a quality beautifully achieved by the composer in his masterpiece. His memoirs are known to full of lies. He was no partisan but a butt boy for the Fascists and Germans that way inclined and fucked his way into Visconti’s circle, thereupon intriguing viciously against that crazy master to make his career (neither the first nor last to go that route but among the most dishonest — truly a whore).
A boring pedant writes: it’s Judi with an i. Short for Judith.
Another pedant writes:Judi Dench was indeed the Juliet in the Zeffirelli Romeo and Juliet-in London.But I think she was replaced in the US tour by Joanna Dunham,a very good actress,no longer working.Maybe she channeled Dench.
If my wobbly memory serves, when the Traviata film opened the NY Times review compared Violetta’s rooms to Versailles and suggested the poor thing must have been flat on her back for many years to afford to live there.
This pedant didn’t say she’d seen Dame “Judy”, only the production, probably in the year following the London premiere. However as the second pedant avers “Judi” did originate the production and I believe it did make her a star.
I continue to think that the young Zeffirelli was a genius. He was particularly good at creating live scenes with everyone onstage, including chorus members, representing specifically characterized individuals. He also knew how to provide beauty. I consider his Romeo & Juliet and his Met Falstaff, Cav/Pag and Otello masterpieces in their time. His Scala and later Met Bohemes were clever, unique, and beautiful productions too. A 70′s Scala Aida was also gorgeous.
After that he seems to have lost it. I don’t find any of his Traviatas to reflect the dramatic action in the novel, the play or the opera. Violetta and her friends are courtesans, not queens or ladies of the aristocracy. They didn’t live or entertain in palaces with liveried servants. Nor did they wear tiaras. It is an intimate drama that loses impact with every attempt at grandeurization. (I know that’s not a real word.) And the productions may be gaudy but I don’t find them particularly beautiful.
What I don’t understand is why theatres all over continue to get him to restage Traviata. They are probably very expensive productions and no longer provide any novelty.
Turandot on the other hand is the sort of unreal spectacle where I find Zeffirelli’s “more is not enough” approach perfectly adequate. It makes sense that the Met should offer a Turandot like no other.
As for Tosca, I never cared for his production. It was not matter of size but that it just didn’t focus on the characters in a realistic way. I don’t like the new Met production but I also never cared for the Zeffirelli Tosca and I’m not particularly keen on seeing it back.
The guy did some great work and now it’s time to shut up and retire.
Can I ask for anyone here to comment on whether they think Zeffirelli with all his ‘plush’ settings rode along ,being so accepted at the time (60-70′s) because like Cecil Beaton and others, were providing that same excessive gaudy design over-kill?
Zeffirelli I admit never stopped ,doing it.
I wouldn’t call his early productions over-kill. Plush perhaps.