Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Opera, theatre and film director best known for directing Callas, Shakespeare films with Burton/Taylor and Gibson, and a famously irreverent Much Ado About Noth
On the island
Eight records
Les pêcheurs de perles:Favourite
The first thing comes to my mind is to save 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.
Symphony No. 9: III. Adagio molto e cantabile
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
We can't think of being in any island, forgotten island, without hearing some of his music every now and then. 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.
Lucia di Lammermoor: Il dolce suono (Mad Scene)
I'd like to remember and hear with you the great m moment of the mad scene sung superbly by John Sutherland.
I like very much contemporary music, especially the music of the young people. ... I can never live without hearing every now and then only you.
Henry V: 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends'
I wouldn't go on a desert island without bringing with me the most extraordinary voice of any actor ever. Sir Lawrence Elida ... In a immemorable unforgettable messages left to us in his uh early Harry the Fifth from the film.
Choir of the Benedictine Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos
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.
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. ... Chubby Checker launching the twist.
Il barbiere di Siviglia: Overture
NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Toscanini
The overture of Barbarossal ... It makes me happy, the music of the scene. It cheers me up. No matter how gloomy or depressed I can be or tired, I hear his music and uh the sun shines again.
Va, pensiero (Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves)
Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan, conducted by Claudio Abbado
I tried to pass a law to make it become our national anthem ... except that the words don't don't match because it is the anguished chorus of the Jews at the end of a day like slaves
Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 (Finale)Favourite
Evgeny Kissin and the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
the two of them created, for me, such a ... an allegory of what is life about, what is culture about, is passing the message from one generation to the other.
A memory of the period was after Florence was liberated in summer 44 and that moment very was very popular a song by Bing Crosby, I Walk Alone.
To my career I have done seven different productions of Don Giovanni, you whatever you do with Don Giovanni, you are in trouble. But it remains for many, I think, the most fascinating Bisot Musical Theatre.
I was absolutely in love with this talent, this man. I was hoping that he would had been sent by heaven to continue opera. That's why I'm so ... so attached to this piece, West Side Story
Maria Callas, with the Orchestra of the Paris Opera, conducted by Georges Prêtre
My love for Carmen springs out of my love for Blendy Bernstein, his excitement, the beautiful melodies, but the also the pace of the ... the dances and the vision of that world is a big circus.
Maria Callas, with the Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan, conducted by Tullio Serafin
Even if she's dead, Maria. She remains like the most extraordinary. Voice of God. The voice of heaven We'll never will never stop. Being totally moved and involved
the happy years of London. The London I knew in the ... late fifties and sixties, when the whole movement of young people burst. and broke all the rules.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:39What in the main has motivated your choice of eight discs? Is it personal nostalgia or great performances?
Oh, I imagine is what you expect from me. Uh selective species because they meant something particular to me. They are associated with uh happy moments of my life is and soothing the bad moments for me and uh like only music and sound can do.
Presenter asks
3:11Where did you learn your very fluent English?
I started uh when I was a child, but I think one of the ambitions of my father was uh rather simple man, I mean he was a businessman imported uh clothes from all over the world, in Florence. ... He said, My son must know languages. The first thing he has to learn... 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 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... And I happened to been made prisoner by the First Regiment of Scotch Guards... 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.
Presenter asks
4:33Was [your mother being a fashion creator] what inspired you to go to art school?
The keepsakes
The book
Dante Alighieri
I wish you'd give me uh together with the Bible and Shakespeare, also Dante Righeri. Uh if I have to choose between Dante Ch and Shakespeare, I will have Dante.
The luxury
I've seen in a window a very beautiful hammock by Hermes. I like to have it in positano. It's so elegant and stupidly attractive, but it's there as a beautiful object and very comfortable to have on a desert island.
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 very young mind, that that that was perhaps the the way to follow.
Presenter asks
6:57[Having met Visconti as an actor,] you assisted Salvador Dali and designed a show — how did that lead to your first directing opportunity?
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... Lascala, because La Scala called me after having seen my works as a designer... 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. ... And then I did uh El Turcon Italia with Maria Carlos. That's the first time I worked with her in nineteen fifty five.
Presenter asks
11:25Your critics have accused you of overdoing it, of being too elaborate, of overwhelming the musical side with the spectacle. Do you think that's ever been justified?
I don't know, you should ask the audience, not the critics.
Presenter asks
20:59Have you any professional ambitions still unfulfilled — one play you want to get your teeth into?
One play? Yes. I like to get my t-shirt. Or one opera. ... is Dantes Inferno I'd like to do it. ... 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.
Presenter asks
2:05You have a fascination for English women, hm? It's a theme in your life.
I wouldn't put it ... so neatly like that. It's ... simply that women ... it is more exciting and inspiring ... for ... a director like me because ... if you really come to know a woman, any woman, you find a ... very warm heart.
Presenter asks
6:09You were born out of wedlock, weren't you? Both your parents were married to other people.
It was a shame at the time, you know, in the early twenties and especially in the society so locked up ... my father was happily married or not happily married, but regularly married with another lady ... and my mother had been ... since ... very young, she had ... she was married and they had three children. and they both met when they were forty. And this ... backlash of love from ... both ends created that sparkle that they couldn't resist.
Presenter asks
16:19How did [Captain Richard Buckle] influence you?
I was fascinated by this man, and then I found out he was a very important ballet critic and theatre critic. So I ... wanted to get all possible information about in English theater
Presenter asks
18:08You loved [Visconti], didn't you?
Oh, deeply and and he really was a ... lovable person, but very tough man to ... live with ... very difficult because you didn't let anything slip away from his attention. So you really had to be all the time On the elect.
Presenter asks
26:46Why have you decided to do [a film about Maria Callas] now?
Because it was offered to me as a Saga. Between ... those two women ... Jacqueline Kennedy and ... and Maria Carlos and On Assis. It was a gossip thing they wanted to make the Americans, and I refused because I said unless you do A document, but what Maria Carlas was ... Supreme Artist. I'm not interested.
“I remember at one point ev everything was ready a few hours before the show began Captain ... of the Scotch Guards ... the great ballet expert and critic Richard Buckle. He came there and looked at this, he said, Who has done this? ... And I was introduced to him and he said, Well, you must watch this boy, because it I'm sure you are going to have a career.”
“I think when you are young, you must do everything until you find, like, you know. With women, you must go with a lot of women and then you select the one who's right for you.”
“I spend my happiest days in opera on the stage of Covent Garden.”
“I don't know, you should ask the audience, not the critics.”
“English actors can really do anything they want, if they want it. So I had no problem, actually if there was a problem, was to restrain the participation to this new experience.”
“The issue is very simple. You can't escape love. in life. No matter how cynical or away from any sentimental ... bent of your life, or no matter what, in the end you are vulnerable there because you are born out of love.”
“I think it's the greatest crime ever. Worse than other any other crime. You can't deny a child the right to exist.”
“I think the message of love, the entity of love, is permanent and it passes from one person to the other, especially when that person is giving you life.”
“I don't want to give up until ... somebody says that's enough. And not me. I won't say that's enough.”