Franco Zeffirelli

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Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

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For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1978 and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

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Our castaway this week is the distinguished director and designer of plays and operas and films, Franco Zaffarelli.

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Signor Zeffarelli, what in the main has motivated your choice of eight discs? Is it personal nostalgia or great performances? What?

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Oh, I imagine is what you expect from me. Uh selective species because they meant something particular to me. They are associated with uh

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happy moments of my life is

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and soothing

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the bad moments for me and uh like only music and sound can do. Are you a musician? Can you read a score? Well, very badly. I mean this has been one of the

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Uh strange uh things in my career because I've I've done a lot of opera, I've done about forty-six new productions, but I work with the greatest singers and conductors.

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What's the first record you've chosen?

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The first thing comes to my mind is to save

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Uh the music written by Bizet, there are to me two pillars of opera ever. Uh Carlas is this dear friend who just uh left us, was what she was and I don't need now to add anything to uh what people know about her or have said about her. Uh Bizet is uh undoubtedly one of the greatest geniuses of uh of the musical planet.

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Though I uh you know, I adore Verdi, I adore Bellini, Pu Puccini, Donizetti, you know, the greatest pillars of our of our operatic world, but Bise to me means something very special.

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Les announced de priest prederation, price sur les pomistille, pouring von je brill, les estor fifteen.

Franco Zeffirelli2:15

Right.

Franco Zeffirelli2:20

Is it only

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La dance chance body, the dance chance, la poris is etiquette, living, c'est la morti, morti, morti, morti, tré de.

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Please do me lazy.

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Maria Callas as common.

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Where did you learn your very fluent English? It's a long story.

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I started uh when I was a child, but I think one of the ambitions of my father was uh

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rather simple man, I mean he was a

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Businessman imported uh clothes from all over the world, in Florence.

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Idi know languages.

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And he suffered from that. So he said, My son must know languages. The first thing he has to learn, even if I have to sell my last uh, you know

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jewel or ring or whatever he had, uh he has to learn languages. So he forced me at the age of eight practically to go and learn uh French and English. Then there was uh the sanctions in nineteen thirty five, thirty six and uh English uh at that time was was very much out of fashion. Mussolini put uh a veto. Yes. We could not speak English. So I I forgot. And only when the war uh came and I crossed the lines and joined the army, your liberation.

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And I happened to

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been made prisoner by the First Regiment of Scotch Guards.

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and s I could hardly speak English, but uh suddenly it all came back. In a matter of uh one week it came back and uh as a matter of fact I remained with him as an interpreter. And since then I never never stopped speaking English.

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No, your mother was a designer, wasn't she? She was a a fashion creator, actually. The great um

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Fashion business was it that inspired you to go to art school?

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No, my mother died. I was six and so I she didn't have much influence in my later choices. But perhaps she, you know, left me some kind of message in my

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very young mind, that that that was perhaps the the way to follow.

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And after art school you studied architecture? I actually uh went to art school thinking of uh stage designing and architecture.

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And I studied architecture in Florence. Then the war came, uh interrupted the studies and uh after the war I joined the theatre. That was my passion. You had got mixed up with the theatre a little bit with the British forces, hadn't you?

Franco Zeffirelli5:14

Yeah.

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Oh yes. How do you know that? What were they doing? What sort of theatre? Uh I remember w I was uh I had been there two months already with the British troops and uh they m the regiment I was with had finally uh a leave. They had fifteen days rest. So they were withdrawn from the front line and they were sent back in a in a very pleasant um

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Villania Siena.

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And uh they asked me how you know if I could organize this uh this stage and theater for them. And I did a little masterpiece apparently because

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I remember at one point ev everything was ready a few hours before

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The show began uh Captain.

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Of the Scotch Guards.

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And you wouldn't believe is uh the great ballet expert and critic Richard.

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Buckle. He was serving as a captain.

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He came there and looked at this, he said, Who has done this? It really was uh rather extraordinary. Um used the camouflage nates and the back of the tracks. I created a real open air theater.

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And I was introduced to him and he said, Well, you must have

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Must watch this boy, because it I'm sure you are going to have a career.

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And then I met him later at Covent Garden and uh he said, I know, I know, I know, I told you.

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So that was the end of architecture. You joined a theatre company.

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You started as an actor. Yeah, as an actor. I was doing everything. You know, I think when you are young, you must do everything until you find, like, you know.

Franco Zeffirelli6:44

You started as an actor. Yeah, is it? How long ago?

Franco Zeffirelli6:50

Yeah.

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With women, you must go with a lot of women and then you select the one who's right for you. Right.

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And it was during that acting period that you met Visconti, who was to have a a great influence on you. Yeah, tremendous, yes. I work as an actor with him, that is designer.

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I assisted Salvador Dali, who designed a quite an extraordinary um as you like it. And then the year uh following here, he's going to give me the

Franco Zeffirelli7:13

As you like.

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chance of uh designing a show which was the first Italian production of streetcar name design. And that's how I started.

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At which point let's have your next record. What's it to be?

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I like to hear well, that's another appointment you cannot miss. I mean, Beethoven is Beethoven.

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We can't think of being in any island, forgotten island, without hearing some of his music every now and then.

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And the one that particularly moves me, and soothes me, and re brings back peace in my heart whenever I am nervous or tired, is the Adagio from the Ninth Symphony.

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The opening of the third movement of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony, Carrion conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. You began an opera, of course, as a designer? No, a designer uh I began uh

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As I said to you as you like it, and then uh Trollus and Cressida always with Viscount. But the first opportunity as a director I had.

Franco Zeffirelli9:08

Okay.

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Drummond.

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Oh.

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Lascala, because La Scala called me after having seen my works as a designer, they called me to design an opera by Rossini, the Italiana in Algeria.

Franco Zeffirelli9:13

One does

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And um in those years I wanted very badly to switch from uh designing to directing. I said, Well, do it only if I can also direct. They said, Well, never do it. The designer also directs, but if you insist, all right. So they gave me the o the opportunity of designing and directing my first production, Ella Scala, which was quite for me a tremendous uh starting at the top. Starting really at the top, and it was a great success. And then I did uh Cenarentala, then I did uh I specialize in Rossini's operas, then I did uh

Franco Zeffirelli9:45

Yeah.

Franco Zeffirelli9:46

No.

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El Turcon Italia with Maria Carlos. That's the first time I worked with her in nineteen fifty five. What was your first overseas engagement?

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The first of the season engagement was in Dallas, Texas. I went there and produced again Italiana Lageri and Traviata with Carlos in 1958.

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They knew Kemen did a rejuvenation job at Covent Garden. Some of our productions were very old indeed at that time.

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They're old now too. My productions are going on are very are getting very old and tired too. It's fate, the destiny of time.

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Oh, there was a very distinguished list of eight or nine of them you did in the late fifties or early sixties, and most of them, as you say, are still in use.

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I

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I spend my happiest days in opera on the stage of Covent Garden. I'm a really good one.

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It was that memorable Tosca you did with

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Actually we practically made our debut together.

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She was uh quite unknown when uh we staged together the Lucia. Yes. It was my debut and her debut. Actually debut at least. She had been singing uh qu quite a while, but never had this kind of tremendous opportunity of uh

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Be able to sing that kind of piece. And of course she did the handles alcine.

Franco Zeffirelli11:10

No, we have

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Alchina, a very small opera, but you made it a very big opera. Well, you know.

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I I I think we succeeded in making it very entertaining because, you know, normally handle is considered

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which leverns and uh in the end comes out as a very boring author, is not at all. Your critics have have accused you of of um overdoing it, of being too elaborate, of overwhelming the musical side with the spectacle. Do you think that's ever been justified?

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I don't know, you should ask the audience, not the critics.

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That's good sense. Let's have another record.

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Well, I think as we've just talked about, um that marvellous uh moment of my life when uh we opened with Lucia the 11th of February 1959 at Covent Garden.

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And we were both um Sada and myself.

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rocketed to the sky like new stars and we held hands together during tremendous ovations that uh followed the the end of that opera that marvelous evening. And I'd like to remember and hear with you the great m moment of the mad scene sung superbly by John Sutherland.

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Joan Sutherland as Lucia de Lamomour.

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Now, your work in the straight theatre many plays in Italy, of course. Your first production in English was at the Old Vic, I think.

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Yes, it was. Actually took me by um by total surprise. I never directed any play ever in my life.

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let alone Shakespeare in English. So when um

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My dear friend Michael Bentel died a few years ago.

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A wonderful man. He called me. I was in Milano rehearsing La Scara, a new piece, and um he called me, I didn't know him. He said, I'm Michael Bentley, Old Vic, etcetera, he said, We'd like you to direct for us next year a new production of Roman Juliet. And I thought absolutely I was convinced it was a joke of some some uh friends of mine in London, so I said, All right, only for the queen asked me to do it, I will do it and hung up the telephone. And then Michael wrote me a letter immediately after in which he said, No, it is really serious. In fact, I wrote, you know, the old big paper and so I couldn't believe my luck and I was taken by fright, sort of panic.

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How can I do it? And then uh I say a little prayer and during the night I made a wonderful dream that uh would have had a great success.

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Thank you, indeed. It was a sensation.

Franco Zeffirelli14:33

Thanks for clear the

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And since then you have directed several Shakespeare plays in Italian.

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And in English too. Oh, yes, Othello Stratford, Othello Stratford, uh, Sir John Gilgard, and uh much ado about nothing at the in the National Theatre again. Yes. But I did um

Franco Zeffirelli14:40

Yeah.

Franco Zeffirelli14:43

So

Franco Zeffirelli14:48

Yes.

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I did a Hamlet in Italy, mm-hmm, and I did another production of Rome and Juliet in Italy.

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Which toured the world.

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And at the National Theatre we did a a modern Italian play by Eduardo di Filippo Saturday, Sunday and Monday with Laurence Olivier and Joan Playwright.

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Great problems, you think, in in teaching um

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English actors brought up in the tradition of Gerald de Maurier to to act with their hands, to speak with their hands in the Italian manner. I deny that the qualification of the English actor. English actors can really do anything they want, if they want it.

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So I had no problem, actually if there was a problem, was to restrain the participation to this new experience.

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Fortunately, I had already been through that company through much ado about nothing, where re really we unleashed all the Italian style, Italian gags, Italian characterizations. So when it came down to It were those uh Saturday and Monday.

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I had no problem making them look and sound Italian.

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Perhaps even too much, I don't know. But the the play uh was a kind of gallery of uh very wild characters. It's quite different from the play I just put on now at the lyric. Philomena is by the same author, but this is a very serious play. Though there is uh that blend of humor and tears that is so typical

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Yeah.

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of Eduardo and

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It's what makes him so likable by the English. I mean the English audience l are very grateful to him because he gives them both colours and he knows superbly how to blend them.

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But this is a very serious play.

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Record number four.

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You'll be surprised.

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I I like very much contemporary music, especially the music of the young people. And I think if I look back at because I've seen developing this kind of uh music, as I remember distinctly when it started,

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And I think one of the turning points has been

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the arrival on our uh radios and um

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Uh television the great uh group, the platters. I can never live without hearing every now and then only you.

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Can you make for this change in me?

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For it's true.

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Are my destiny.

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When you

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My brain

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There's

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The Platters

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Now you had worked in in your days with Visconti on several films with him, hadn't you? Yes, I did. I think three films. The m the most beautiful experience in my life was uh being his assistant uh in La Terra Trema, the film we shot in Sicily with fishermen and real people, no actors. And you also worked with De Sica? I did uh a sh a short episode with him, uh second assistant, and uh with Disconti again, Senso, and a film with uh Magnani, Bellissima.

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The first film on your own was The Taming of the Shrew. No, I've done a little film.

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A lousy little picture, but very funny and very amusing. We enjoyed doing it in fifty eight. It was called Camping. It made a lot of money actually, but that well, wasn't exactly in the beginning of a career.

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Oh, the the beginning of the career was obviously the taming of the shrew. You went to the Renaissance painters for for the visible side of that. Well, it was inevitable, I'm afraid.

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It took place in Padua and we recreated this legendary Padua. Although it was entirely rebuilt in the studios, it had a kind of artificial, very near a theatrical experience. I had I didn't want to risk much, you know, the first time I approached um this new medium I wasn't really that young and I had already a reputation. I didn't want to, you know, to risk too much. And also because I thought that Shakespeare on the screen is always a tremendous uh source of uh ideas and um inspiration. And that particular piece was perfectly suitable for those two monsters. Uh

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Taylor and Burston, yes, who really did it, I think, very well.

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And so a year later I t picked up two unknowns and um brought them to

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The attention of the world audience with the Roman Juliet.

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Your leader has in Leonard Whiting. And you did the same thing for Brother Son, Sister Moon, the story of Saint Francis of Assisi. You found two unknowns.

Franco Zeffirelli19:35

Yeah.

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Oh yes. Uh they're all they're all um

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New cameras, uh, new English people. And you took on that daunting assignment, the story of Jesus for television, six hours, was it not? Yeah, well, yes.

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Yes, it was uh it scared me. Then again I said a little prayer, and one night I dreamt it would have been a great success. Another record, please.

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Oh, another record. Now, wait a minute. I wouldn't go on a desert island without bringing with me the most extraordinary voice of any actor ever.

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Sir Lawrence Elida, Lord Elida.

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In a immemorable

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unforgettable messages left to us in his uh early Harry the Fifth from the film. It was absolutely bizarre when I saw it. I must have seen it five or ten six times.

Speaker 320:25

And you, good yeomen, whose limbs were made in England, show us here the metal of your pasture. Let us swear that you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not, for there is none of you so mean and base that hath not noble lustre in your eyes. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slip, straining upon the start. The game's afoot. Follow your spirit, and upon this charge, cry God for Harry, England and St. John!

Speaker 320:52

Alright, now

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The voice of Laurence Olivier.

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Have you any professional ambitions till unfulfilled one play you want to get your teeth into?

Franco Zeffirelli20:59

Have you ever

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One play? Yes. I like to get my t-shirt. Or one opera.

Franco Zeffirelli21:09

I'll put it as a one.

Franco Zeffirelli21:11

Yeah.

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is Dantes Inferno

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I'd like to do it. You've tried to set that up before. Yeah, but um I wasn't lucky, you know, the setup. I have something I want to do one day. That's a film. Plays, I mean plays there are so many, one more beautiful than the other. I'd like to do Three Sisters, but Sheikhov. I like to do many plays. I mean there are many Shakespeareans I haven't done yet. I would like to do a Trollus Crescina again, I love it. Back music, whatnot? Yes. There is one piece which uh I really like to hear over and over again. It's a a Gregorian chant. It's uh one of the most gentle and sweet and beautiful. And it's called Salve Regina. It's a prayer to the Virgin. And it reminds me of the many times I went to church with my mother, one of my oldest, and uh and uh heard this beautiful hymn. I'd like to hear it again.

Franco Zeffirelli21:36

Uh

Speaker 422:15

My time is a big one.

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There's better song.

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Are they the market?

Franco Zeffirelli22:30

Okay, oh

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The old hardware was

Speaker 423:02

My son was gay.

Speaker 423:05

Yeah.

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Salve Regina sung by the choir of the Benedictine Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos.

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Now

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You design scenery. Could you build it? And you can cleat something together on your desert island to make a shelter, can you? I told you about uh what I did in the Res camp during the war. It was practically done with nothing camouflage tents, uh flowers, uh branches and it was done with rocks. So I presume I'll make it marvelous, beaut beautiful, inventive work with the mat natural material I would find on that island. Would you try to escape?

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I don't know.

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I don't know. It depends what uh I find there, what I can create uh, if I can adjust to it. If I can adjust to it, I will never escape.

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Record number seven now. Now, you'll be surprised. There is one piece that really has impressed me, I'll never forget, because I happened to be there when it was launched and exploded. I don't know if you remember the end of the fifties. The famous uh Peppermill Lounge in New York, Chubby Checker launching the twist.

Speaker 424:26

Yeah.

Speaker 424:27

Let's fucking last year!

Speaker 424:30

When we go

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Get

Speaker 424:38

The crystal time is here.

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Choppy checker, let's twist again. I've forgotten how to do it. Oh, I th I can't tell you. It was such a furore when uh it happened. I happened to be in New York on my way from Dallas, and we went there, guess with Maria Carlos.

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and Leonard Bernstein, because if we could and we were ashamed they were very ashamed to go in that kind of place, so they disguised themselves, you know, and we f as soon as we entered and we couldn't enter. Nobody

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I recognized Bernstein, who was he was quite furious because he was dressed like um a truck driver.

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Finally somebody recognized him and we could go in.

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And there, in a corner up on the ladder, was Greta Garbo, so

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And uh we all wanted to dance, but uh we couldn't, you know, we didn't have the trick. Then finally, uh Lenny called one of these dancers and said, Come with us.

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Because we can't go around in the world today without knowing how to dance a twist. So a whole night in front of a mirror the four of us

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Trying to twist him. Finally, Maria shouted, I got it, I've got it, I've got it.

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Now, your last record. What's that? I think the overture of Barbarossal

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One by a Rossini. It makes me happy, the music of the scene. It cheers me up.

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No matter how gloomy or depressed I can be or tired, I hear his music and uh

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The sun shines again.

Presenter27:07

The NBC Symphony Orchestra playing the Overture to the Barbara Seville, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

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If you could take just one of the eight discs you've played to us, which would it be?

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I think I'll keep uh the team uh colours busy.

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Write comment.

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And one luxury to have with you.

Presenter27:30

Can it be perfume? It could be perfume, sir. Because I imagine through what you said, there are no s good scents in that island unless

Presenter27:37

You bring some um good seeds from abroad. Um well, I'll take my perfume, yes. Hamman bouquet, made by Penaligon in London. Right. A large flacon. And one book apart from that little list that we have put aside, the Bible and Shakespeare and big encyclopedias.

Presenter27:54

Well, as a real uh treat, I'll uh ask you to give me a good uh

Presenter28:00

Edition of uh War and Peace by Tolstoy.

Presenter28:04

And thank you, Franco Zeffarelli, for letting us hear your Desert Island discussion. Thank you very much. This is a very pleasant chat. I wish we could continue.

Presenter28:13

Thank you very much for your patience. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.

Franco Zeffirelli28:13

Thank you.

Franco Zeffirelli28:41

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.