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This Week's Guest:
Franco Zeffirelli
Sunday 18 May
Repeated
Friday 23 May | | |  |
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| Franco's Choice |  | |
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the director Franco Zeffirelli.
He was born the illegitimate son of a philandering businessman and a successful fashion designer, both of whom were married to other people. Unable to give him his father’s or her own name, his mother plucked a word out of a Mozart opera – ‘zefferetti’, meaning ‘little breeze’ – and gave it to her son. Somewhere along the line a slip of a pen transformed it into Zeffirelli, and Franco has gone by it for 80 years.
He was only six when his mother died of tuberculosis. His father was reluctant to take care of Franco but was shamed into palming him off onto an aunt, and later his English secretary Mary O’Neill. Mary belonged to a society of English ex-pats in Florence and young Franco grew up under their extraordinary influence. His experiences were eventually fictionalised into his 1999 film Tea With Mussolini, starring Joan Plowright, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Cher.
In the war he fought as a partisan and twice faced a firing squad before he met up with the 1st Scots Guards and became their interpreter. As well as using his linguistic talents, the Scots Guards gave him an early opportunity for theatrical creativity, and he made an open-air auditorium from 30 army trucks and some camouflage netting.
After the war he studied art and architecture and was drawn into the worlds of theatre and film, working as assistant to the Marxist director Luchino Visconti initially but soon designing and directing his own films, plays and operas.
His filmography runs to some twenty movies from the ground-breaking, and at the time shocking Romeo and Juliet of 1968 to the brooding Jane Eyre of 1996 via his stunning seven-hour Jesus of Nazareth for television in 1977, not to mention his 1990 Hamlet with Mel Gibson in the leading role. On stage he is famed for his opulent productions at the opera and he has worked with the titans of the art including Maria Callas, Placido Domingo, Joan Sutherland and Herbert Von Karajan.
He is in London to direct Pirandello’s Absolutely! (Perhaps) starring Joan Plowright and Oliver Ford Davies, which opened at Wyndham’s Theatre on 7th May.
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1. 'Va Pensiero' The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco
Performer Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan cond. Claudio Abbado
Composer Verdi
Publisher Polydor International
CD Title Opera Choruses
Track 2
Label DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON
Rec No 413 448-2
2. Final movement of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1
Performer Yevgeny Kissin with the Berlin Philharmonic cond. Herbert Von Karajan
Composer Tchaikovsky
Publisher Deutsche Grammophon
CD Title Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1
Track 3
Label DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON
Rec No 4274852
3. 'I'll walk alone'
Performer Bing Crosby
Composer Styne/Cahn
Publisher Avid records
CD Title Bing Crosby with Judy Garland and Al Holson - 75 golden recordings
Track 7
Label AVID
Rec No AVC 625
4. 'La ci darem la Mono'/ Put your hand in mine
Performer Ingvar Wixell and Mirella Frenni with Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Convent Garden
conducted by Sir Colin Davis
Composer Mozart
Publisher Philips
CD Title Don Giovanni
Track Cd1 trk 12
Label PHILIPS
Rec No 416 407-2
5. 'America'
Performer Tatiana Troyanos
Composer Music by Leonard Bernstein, words by Stephen Sondheim
Publisher Polydor international
CD Title West Side Story
Track Cd1 trk 12
Label DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON
Rec No 415 254-2
6. 'Chanson Boheme'
Performer Maria Callas
Composer Bizet
Publisher EMI
CD Title Carmen
Track 16
Label EMI
Rec No CDC 754369
7. 'Casta Diva'
Performer Maria Callas with the Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan
Composer Bellini
Publisher EMI
CD Title Norma (highlights)
Track 1
Label EMI
Rec No CDM 763091 2
8. 'Yesterday'
Performer The Beatles
Composer Lennon/McCartney
Publisher EMI
CD Title Help
Track 13
Label PARLAPHONE
Rec No CDP 7464392
Record: 'Chanson Boheme' from Carmen
Book: Dante's Inferno
Luxury: A hammock from Hermes
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