Ezio Frigerio (16 July 1930 – 2 February 2022) was an Italian

costume designer A costume designer is a person who designs costumes for a film, stage production or television show. The role of the costume designer is to create the characters' outfits or costumes and balance the scenes with texture and colour, etc. The costume ...

and art director.

Career

After finishing

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

studies, he approached

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

art by realising the

costume Costume is the distinctive style of dress or cosmetic of an individual or group that reflects class, gender, profession, ethnicity, nationality, activity or epoch. In short costume is a cultural visual of the people. The term also was tradition ...

s for ''Casa di Bambola'' and '' L'opera da 3 soldi'', two plays directed by

Giorgio Strehler Giorgio Strehler (; ; 14 August 1921 – 25 December 1997) was an actor, Italian opera and theatre director. Biography Strehler was born in Barcola, Trieste; His father, Bruno Strehler, was a native of Trieste with family roots in Vienna and die ...

at Piccolo Teatro in the 1955-56 theatre season. From then on a fertile artistic marriage started between art director and producer, setting up several unique productions as ''I giganti della montagna'' (1966), ''Santa Giovanna dei macelli'' (1970), ''

Re Lear ' (; Italian for ''King Lear'') is an Italian operatic libretto in four acts written by Antonio Somma for the Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi. It was based on ''King Lear'', "the Shakespeare play with which Verdi struggled for so many ye ...

'' (1972), ''Il temporale'' (1980), '' L'Illusion Comique'', which premiered in 1984 at Théatre de l'Odéon in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, ''La grande magia'', which premiered in 1985 and was

reprise In music, a reprise ( , ; from the verb 'to resume') is the repetition or reiteration of the opening material later in a composition as occurs in the recapitulation of sonata form, though—originally in the 18th century—was simply any repe ...

d several times. The collaboration with Strehler made Frigerio enter the world of opera: Mozart's ''

Le Nozze di Figaro ''The Marriage of Figaro'' ( it, Le nozze di Figaro, links=no, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premie ...

'', '' Don Giovanni'' and '' Così fan tutte'' were realized by Strehler and Frigerio between 1973 and 1996. ''Così fan tutte'' was being staged just before Strehler died. Frigerio also created stage designs for the Burgtheater in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

: ''Trilogie der Sommerfrische'' (''Trilogia della villeggiatura'') by Carlo Goldoni, directed by Strehler, 1974; '' Judith'' by Hebbel, directed by Gerhard Klingenberg, 1975. Other operatic stage designs include: Cherubini's ''

Medea In Greek mythology, Medea (; grc, Μήδεια, ''Mēdeia'', perhaps implying "planner / schemer") is the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, a niece of Circe and the granddaughter of the sun god Helios. Medea figures in the myth of Jason an ...

'', directed by

Liliana Cavani Liliana Cavani (born 12 January 1933, Carpi, Italy) is an Italian film director and screenwriter. She belongs to a generation of Italian filmmakers from Emilia-Romagna that came into prominence in the 1970s, including Bernardo Bertolucci, Pier P ...

, for the

Opéra National de Paris The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be ...

;

Strauss Strauss, Strauß or Straus is a common Germanic surname. Outside Germany and Austria ''Strauß'' is always spelled ''Strauss'' (the letter " ß" is not used in the German-speaking part of Switzerland). In classical music, "Strauss" usually re ...

' '' Elektra'', directed by Nuria Espert, for De Munt Theatre in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

;

Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...

's ''Ernani'', directed by

Luca Ronconi Luca Ronconi (8 March 1933 – 21 February 2015) was an Italian actor, theater director, and opera director. Biography Ronconi was born in Sousse, Tunisia. After growing up in Tunisia, where his mother was a school teacher, Ronconi graduated ...

, 1980,

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

's ''

Fidelio ''Fidelio'' (; ), originally titled ' (''Leonore, or The Triumph of Marital Love''), Op. 72, is Ludwig van Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto was originally prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, wi ...

'', directed by

Werner Herzog Werner Herzog (; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with u ...

in 1999 for the Teatro alla Scala in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

; Bellini's ''

Norma Norma may refer to: * Norma (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) Astronomy *Norma (constellation) *555 Norma, a minor asteroid * Cygnus Arm or Norma Arm, a spiral arm in the Milky Way galaxy Geography *Norma, Lazi ...

'', directed by Piero Faggioni, for the

Vienna State Opera The Vienna State Opera (, ) is an opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by August ...

in 1977;

's ''

Rigoletto ''Rigoletto'' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play '' Le roi s'amuse'' by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had co ...

'', for the Polish National Opera in 1997. The team of Frigerio and Squarciapiano also designed the Met Opera's gorgeous and sensational Zandonai FRANCESCA DA RIMINI in 1984 (Scotto, Domingo, MacNeil, Levine). Frigerio also created the sets for

's movie ''Galileo e i Cannibali'' and

Jean-Paul Rappeneau Jean-Paul Rappeneau (born 8 April 1932) is a French film director and screenwriter. Career He started out in film as an assistant and screenwriter collaborating with Louis Malle on ''Zazie dans le métro (film), Zazie dans le métro'' in 1960 a ...

's ''

Cyrano de Bergerac Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac ( , ; 6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian, and duelist. A bold and innovative author, his work was part of the libertine literature of the first half of the 17th cen ...

'', which got an

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology) ...

nomination in 1991. He designed the grave of

Rudolf Nureyev Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev ( ; Tatar/ Bashkir: Рудольф Хәмит улы Нуриев; rus, Рудо́льф Хаме́тович Нуре́ев, p=rʊˈdolʲf xɐˈmʲetəvʲɪtɕ nʊˈrʲejɪf; 17 March 19386 January 1993) was a Soviet ...

. Frigerio often collaborated with Italian costume designer Franca Squarciapino who was also his life partner.

Death

Frigerio died on 2 February 2022, at the age of 91.

References

Notes

*Henderson, Marina (1992), 'Frigerio, Ezio' in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', ed. Stanley Sadie (London) *
Zurich Opera biography (German), accessed 25 January 2010
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frigerio, Ezio 1930 births 2022 deaths Italian costume designers Opera designers European Film Awards winners (people) Italian designers Italian art directors People from the Province of Como