Ezio Frigerio dies, a benchmark for international theater and opera

Ezio Frigerio died this Wednesday at the age of 91.

He was born in Erba on June 16, 1930 and died in Lecco, on the southern shore of his much loved and native Lake Como and next to the source of the Adda River, whose bridges he drew so many times.

He studied architecture courses at the Milan Polytechnic, where he enrolled in 1948, the hotbed of modern Italian architecture and where Gae Aulenti and Vittorio Garatti were also studying at that time, among other brilliant designers, who also developed careers as set designers.

Frigerio did not get to graduate and changed course by enrolling in the Savona Nautical Institute, embarking for a short time sailing as a deck officer.

Much later he said that what he loved most about that stage was the white uniform with gold braid.

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The couple that revolutionized world theater

In 1951 painting caught him and he became the only disciple of the abstract painter Mario Radice, with whom he established a solid relationship of friendship and teaching until he became his vital teacher, his aesthetic guide.

In the mid-1950s he meets Giorgio Strehler, director of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, and this is decisive, it can be said that for both of them.

One of the first major works that Strehler commissioned from him was the costume designs for

, by Federico García Lorca, which accompanied sets by Luciano Damiani.

Little by little the restless Ezio drifted towards scenery, a change facilitated in part by his studies in architectural drawing and which were to be the plastic tonic and aesthetic base of his unmistakable constructive and monumentalist style.

On his first and adventurous professional trip to Rome, he meets Vittorio de Sica, and designs for him

by Luigi Pirandello, at the Quirino Theater in Rome, with great success that makes them tour all over Italy.

De Sica's friendship and teaching led Frigerio to design sets for films such as

(1962);

(1963) and

(1963).

From Rome she also designed sets for Eduardo De Filippo.

She got her start in ballet thanks to her friendship with the French choreographer Roland Petit (1924–2011), for whom she designed

,

, and

until making

at the Paris Opera.

Ezio Frigerio with his wife, the costume designer Franca Squarciapino. CARLOS ROSILLO

Next, Rudolf Nureyev chooses him as set designer and they establish, with his wife, the costume designer Franca Squarciapino, a friendship of three forever, very solid and based on art collecting and dreams come true through great productions.

First they did

for the London Festival Ballet and successively, at the Paris Opera

, a new version of

,

and finally

in October 1992, the last work of the Russian, that he would die in January 1993. Frigerio designed Nureyev's tomb on behalf of the Nureyev Foundation and, apparently, there was already an express wish of the dancer in this regard.

Frigerio and Squarciapino's relationship with the Teatro alla Scala would be for life, starting with Strehler, but expanding to ballet.

Operas such as

,

,

,

,

,

and others are remembered among the most outstanding productions of the last 50 years in the Milanese Coliseum.

And there is another record: he signed the design of the season opening work 11 times: the mythical debut in San Ambrosio, on December 7.

After years with costumes and a lot of work at the Piccola Scala, it was in 1966 with

by Bellini, directed by Renato Castellani and under the direction of Claudio Abbado (who was also making his debut), his baptism as a “

” set designer.

They were followed by

and

with Luca Ronconi, and

with Werner Herzog.

In the following decades he made up to 12 productions at the Paris Opera, including

(1975, with Strehler) and three titles with Liliana Cavani:

,

and

(Cherubini).

Paris consecrated it to another scale and level, placed it in history.

Frigerio is, in addition to being a set designer, a severe artistic director, a fundamental reference in the international theater, ballet and opera scene since the 1960s.

In 1972 he marries Franca and the professional union is consolidated, an unbeatable duo that has been a guarantee of quality, refinement and packaging that has not been exempt from criticism for a certain excessive bombast;

one American critic called them "high-flying new mannerists and lush color schemes."

In 2017 Frigerio received the Gold Medal for Fine Arts from the Spanish State.

Frigerio was neither born in Milan nor did he presume that the Harlequin costume [Arlecchino] for a Strehler's Goldoni was his;

he frequently joked about this.

He simply stylized a costume from the seventies to adapt it to the peculiar physique of the main actor of the “c

”.

"Common places do as much damage as lies," he declared in an interview for this newspaper two decades ago.

Among his Spanish friends and collaborators were Núria Espert and Lluís Pascual at the head.

With the first he did the

for the reopening of the Teatro del Liceo in Barcelona and then the

at the Real de Madrid;

there was also a

in Covent Garden and a

in Glasgow.

With Pascual there were also many worthwhile jobs.

And in a Goldoni, Frigerio had a sophisticated and memorable idea: to mark the passage of time, the chairs changed, they were renewed, from rococo armchairs to rationalists of the 20th century or Bauhaus.

Several of his assistants in such a long career later became great stage and costume designers, such as Luisa Spinatelli, Mauro Pagano (prematurely disappeared), Domenico Franchi, Giuliano Spinelli and Riccardo Massironi.

In Madrid, his great exhibition was in 2006 at the Cultural Center of La Villa de la Plaza de Colón, a wide and careful sample of all his works for the theater, opera and ballet, where he has also left his firm and personal stamp. .