ZEFFIRELLI, FRANCO

original name Gianfranco Corsi born Feb. 12, 1923, Florence, Italy Italian director, designer, and producer of opera, theatre, motion pictures, and television, particularly noted for the authentic details and grand scale of his opera productions. Zeffirelli attended the University of Florence to study architecture, but while there he became involved with the university's theatre company. His studies were interrupted by Germany's occupation of Italy; he became a Partisan and served as an interpreter for the Scots Guard. When the war was over, he went to Rome to pursue a career in theatre. In 1946 he joined Luchino Visconti's Morelli-Stoppa Company as an actor and stage director. After working with Visconti on La terra trema (1948; The Earth Trembles) and other films, Zeffirelli began to concentrate on stage design. His first major design for opera was a production (195253) of Gioacchino Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri for La Scala, Milan. He worked on a number of other opera and theatre productions from the 1950s, notably the operas La traviata (1958), Lucia di Lammermoor (1959), and La Bohme (1963 and 1981). He also began to direct films. These included The Taming of the Shrew (1967; with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor), Romeo and Juliet (1968), Endless Love (1981), and Hamlet (1990), as well as films of operas such as I Pagliacci (1981), La traviata (1982), and Otello (1986). He also produced the television epic Jesus of Nazareth (1977).