Franco Zeffirelli, 95, to stage a new Rigoletto

Franco Zeffirelli, 95, to stage a new Rigoletto

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norman lebrecht

November 07, 2018

The picture says it all.

The Italian director has been wheeled out to stage a Verdi opera at the Royal Opera House Muscat for the 50th anniversary of the kingdom of Oman in 2020.

It’s a co-production with Rome Opera and it has been announced by the Italian Minister for Higher Education as a token of Gulf investment in Italian culture.

 

Comments

  • Caravaggio says:

    What, no Plácido?

  • JoBe says:

    The Portuguese director, Manoel de Oliveira, made his first film in 1927, and his last film in 2014, at the age of 106.
    Zeffirelli still has some way to go to equal that, but he certainly is trying.

  • Don Ciccio says:

    Say what you want about Zeffirelli, but he knows and loves opera.

  • Petros Linardos says:

    Will Zefirelli only direct Rigoletto in Muscat?

    The Rome Opera website lists a 2018-19 Rigoletto directed by Daniele Abbado.

    Confusing.

  • Pedro says:

    Dóhnayi could conduct. Domingo will sing Rigoletto, Carreras Il Duca and Gruberova Gilda.

  • Cyril says:

    The picture may say it all for those already in the know. But for those wallowing in ignorance, it doesn’t say much.

  • Cantantelirico says:

    The Metropolitan Opera once flourished on the genius of this man alone.

    • Petros Linardos says:

      Why the hyperbole?
      I dearly miss those days, but there were other great directors too, like Otto Schenk, who had done most or all the Met’s Wagner.

      • Ametfan says:

        Very true, but despite Otto Schenk being an actor and enormously popular in German speaking countries — and probably more due to the inability of Americans to fully comprehend his Viennese manner — Franco Zeffirelli did rule the popular audience at the Met for decades. This is not to diminish the great accomplishments of others, but just to note that Franco captured the imaginations of a generation through his tremendous charisma, onstage and off.

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