Franco Zeffirelli

...motif and Art Deco wonder. The season-opening production of Puccini's "Tosca" was one created by Franco Zeffirelli for two operatic legends, Maria Callas and Tito Gobbi, at London's Covent Gardens. From our seats near the orchestra...

In this article: Chicago, Sarah Bernhardt, Michigan Avenue, When I'm Sixty-Four, Paul McCartney, Chicago River, and Merchandise Mart

...is reviving. Director Franco Zeffirelli created the show for Callas and Gobbi at London's Royal Opera, Covent Garden, in 1964; Covent Garden retired designer Renzo Mongiardino's ornate sets more than three decades later. The Lyric...

In this article: Tosca, Maria Callas, Faust, Emmanuel Villaume, The Marriage of Figaro, and The Merry Widow

...at London's Covent Garden in 1964. The director of that production was Franco Zeffirelli - whose far more recent production of "Tosca" for New York's Metropolitan Opera was discarded this season as too old! The contrast was startling when...

In this article: Tosca, Faust, Faust, Mephistopheles, and Faust

...Garrett's famous interpretation of the Sacristan in Tosca. Garrett first sang the role in the famous Zeffirelli production starring Maria Callas and Tito Gobbi at Covent Garden in 1964. Garrett brought to the early scenes, in which his...

In this article: Covent Garden, Gianni Schicchi, Luciano Pavarotti, Tito Gobbi, Hamlet, Heart failure, and Welsh National Opera

...too, beginning in the 1940s. Gobbi famously sang the part of Scarpia in the 1964 Franco Zeffirelli production of Puccini 's Tosca at Covent Garden, with soprano Maria Callas in the title role. Act II of the production was filmed and...

In this article: Tito Gobbi, Gaetano Donizetti, EMI, Maria Callas, Covent Garden, Tosca, Simon Boccanegra, and Pagliacci

...hoots were meant for Swiss director Luc Bondy and the Met's decision to used his heretical ideas in place of its comfortable old Franco Zeffirelli production. Lyric's production could be called "Zeffirelli's Revenge," because it uses his...

In this article: Tosca, Deborah Voigt, and New York

(Zeffirelli in his younger days was another matter: his direction of Callas and Gobbi in Act II of "Tosca," as seen on a 1964 telecast from Covent Garden, is remarkable both for its attention to detail and for its ferocious formal control.)

In this article: Tosca, Peter Gelb, Tito Gobbi, Act II, Traviata, Karita Mattila, and Maria Callas

Callas Forever Callas Forever is a 2002 biographical film directed by Franco Zeffirelli, who co-wrote the screenplay with Martin Sherman. It is an homage to Zeffirelli's friend, internationally acclaimed opera diva Maria Callas, whom he...

In this article: Maria Callas, Carmen, Callas Forever, Fanny Ardant, Tosca, Paris, Spain, and Roquefort

...Aegean Sea, off the coast of Greece, according to her wish. In late 2004, opera and film director Franco Zeffirelli made what many consider a bizarre claim that Callas may have been murdered by her confidant, Greek pianist Vasso Devetzi, in...

In this article: Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Elvira de Hidalgo, La Scala, Aristotle Onassis, Michael Scott, and Pasta