by Paolo Felici A forceful inspiration and continual development of a figurative idea have been characteristics of Frigerio’s enormous here are periods when artistic expression seems suddenly to come alive again. The reason for this can be found in output. It is possible to count over two hundred and fifty productions for the most important theatres in the world: it is gmany and unexpected causes: the joining together of people who are capable of transforming exterior stimuli into sufficient to mention some of the directors with whom he has worked, such as , , Edoardo something new, the identification of a place in which to operate and a fresh encounter with a knowledgeable public. Just De Filippo, and Roger Planchon. At the beginning of the Sixties, Frigerio began designing for the cinema (“I sequestrati as unexpected are the results that are attained: rapid transformations and new goals which were unforeseen.Ezio di Altona” directed by Vittorio De Sica). He subsequently worked with and Bernardo Bertolucci. He has Frigerio’s work began during one of these fortunate periods: the beginning of his career as a set and costume designer also designed extensively for television. In 1974 he married , a costume designer, and his was linked with a meeting with Giorgio Strehler in 1955 and his collaboration with the in . companion in life as well as work.

Carlo Goldoni Harlequin, Servant of Two Masters. Piccolo Teatro, Milan - Direction: Giorgio Strehler In your opinion, set designing is a designing. There are not many true The different arts move parallel into infinity profession or an integral part of set designers. and therefore the plastic arts do not meet the world of art? In which art period do you with set designing. The claim that some set I would say a bit of both, even particularly feel at home? designers have made that the two worlds are though I think the professional My great passion is the Italian linked, is absurd and misleading. Some aspect is predominant. Designing Renaissance period, especially the painters who have produced abstract designs sets does not necessarily mean early Renaissance. I think I have have only reproduced old things: those who producing works of art; only absorbed the rigorous composition in 1940 produced set designs in the style of sometimes is a set design a work of and the purity of the composition. I Mondrian forgot that Mondrian was a painter art. We can find similarities with do not say that I do not love the who lived between the end of the 19th and other forms of craftsmanship. Baroque or do not admire greatly the the beginning of the 20th century. Whereas Usually a craftsman is limited to 18th century, the period that came Mondrian painted, set designers presented producing furniture for everyday before the Neoclassic. I certainly do the new realism by placing on the stage the needs. However, there are pieces of not love the ivy that corroded the carcases of real oxen. In the relationship furniture that have gone down in Roman ruin. Arcadia and the late between set designer and plastic arts there history and were made many Romanticism are not the periods that have been moments of violent alternations: centuries ago but we know the I love the most. But I do not think there have been periods when the historical designer. Let us take for an example that a set designer should love the time produced a marriage, a marriage which the case of Cellini, a very elegant age nearest to his culture; if the to my mind is unnatural. When Strehler and sculptor; even though all we have theme to be dealt with means Damiani created a certain type of theatre, left of his works are a few sculpted entering into a world that I do not they were linked to a certain historical pieces, it cannot be denied that he know well, I try to feel close to it. moment. Repeated at a distance of some was a great artist. However, I also Is there a reason why you years, their productions were less interesting, think that to speak of set designing as frequently use an architectural even though at that time it seemed that the a profession is too limiting. I would frontal vision? Is this anything to puritan line of setting the scene was the prefer to think of it as an expression do with your passion for the definitive approach. After a few years, of craftsmanship in the highest sense Renaissance? Strehler himself needed to have something of the word: a type of quality I love the Renaissance but I am not a different to say. craftsmanship that can create a work Renaissance set designer: many Which teachers and authors have of art. We know some excellent set layers of experience and many contributed to your development? designers who are excellent infinite cultural filters reflect my I deny having had a relationship with my professionals. But some of them, like approach to the architecture of that ancient predecessors. In the 18th century a Danilo Donati for example, have time. This entering into the certain type of set design was carried out gone beyond. Renaissance is to live through a which favoured the portrayal of an What sort of training is required complex experience that is not anonymous site. The magic was provided by for a set designer? limited to reproducing a certain type the very rich fantasy in the composition. In I think it is essential to have a good of vision. How could I forget the the 19th century, set designing had assumed base of general culture, which often Baroque and the Romantic era when a more illustrative character. I would not my colleagues lack, especially the I study the Renaissance? My interest dare to say that either of these two forms younger ones. It is not enough to in this historic period is the fruit of were relations of modern set designing that have a culture only in the field of youthful passions: I am now fairly was born at the beginning of the 20th century visual art; how can one read and old and come from the late romantic and which explored the work more deeply. interpret a work of the 18th, 17th or and middle-class world. The impact Today the set designer can be defined, if we 16th century without knowing what of the architecture and an extremely want to use a horrible word, as a co-author happened at that time and working pure, essential painting could not with the director. The work is no longer a only on a documentary basis? Again help but create a strong attraction. representation of itself but it is interpreted. I return to what I said before: a However, it remains a youthful The director’s interpretation is the point of documentary base can make a good passion and a great deal of other departure for the set designer: it will be for professional but a deep and rich experience has been accumulated. the set designer to produce projects based on general culture will make a true set What kind of relationship is there the purely intellectual proposals given by the designer, one who will be between the world of figurative, directors. The director does not interfere remembered in the history of set plastic arts and set designing? with the production of the projects. This is an absolutely new process; before the end of young and the not-so-young. It is easy to the 19th century it did not exist. I am succumb to the fascination of material for trying to find predecessors in the 1900s: the material itself. But fundamentally the Appia, Gordon Craig are my ideal matching, and the motivation that calls mentors: I have spoken about Damiani, for its use, goes beyond the pure and who was for me a great maestro, and I simple knowledge of the material itself. must also speak of many modern Can you define the concept of space for architects. I created set designs based on us? architecture, using architecture as a The stage is a mysterious place. Sitting in language, not as an image in itself. a seat in the theatre, the curtain rises and Your realistic approach to set a space appears, sometimes very small. designing is often spoken about. Isn’t The Piccolo Teatro stage has been the this a limiting definition as it does not scene of many of my designs. It is a space take into account the evocative not much bigger than this room where we character of your productions which are speaking now: the proscenium is are linked to memory? three metres wide and five metres deep. I have always maintained that set And yet within that space an immensity designing is not a creation but a has been created: emptiness, the horizon, suggestion. a serene sky, thunderstorms. I have therefore used the architectural How did you manage to do this? element in a suggestive form and never as The Piccolo Teatro has a very small space an expressive form. Set designing has with which we struggled. And then I and succeeded if it moves something in some of my colleagues understood that in people’s hearts: even with realism it is the end it was for us to dictate and invent possible to obtain this effect. Our space. Instead on other occasions it was sensitiveness is fed by what we have necessary to reduce spaces that were experienced in various moment of our much too big. Everyone who sees the lives and one of the most important famous and notorious “Nozze di Figaro” periods without doubt is childhood. This asks why the rooms are so small. But in store of emotions produces images and it reality they are not small at all. The is very difficult to understand where they rooms in the “Nozze di Figaro” are come from. The connection that exists immense. However the culture of between my set designs and my study of distance makes it possible to proportion modern architecture is hidden in the text the scene in such a way as to create this on which I am working and by my illusion. The manipulation of space is a personality. It is very difficult to discover fundamental part of a set designer’s life, the true origins of my ideas: they are even but it is very difficult to explain it in mysterious to myself. purely technical terms. If you asked me Therefore you arrive at selecting light how I managed to obtain certain results, I and materials in a purely intuitive would not know how to reply. manner? One characteristic that all your Even though I do nothing with my hands productions have in common is the I am very interested in, and I think I have study of detail, both of the set and the a great feeling for, materials. Still at my costumes. What method do you use to age the choice of the right material for a decide on the details? work stimulates and fascinates me. I In all my productions there is always a think it is necessary to adjust the work vision that is more spatial than analytical. which is being staged to the materials that Analysis is like the patina of time. Any are available today through new object we see has its marks, its techniques. To use modern materials corrosions: there is nothing that has not carelessly is one of the great mistakes acquired its patina in our eyes. And it is which many of my colleagues make, the this patina that seduces the person who Bertolt Brecht Threepenny Opera Théâtre du Châtelet, . Direction: Giorgio Strehler 1986 This sketch springs from the idea inspired by a photo by Bill Brant, “Shadows of Lights”: The whitened faces of a violently Expressionistic make-up, the tail-coats, the top hats, the cigars of the the ideal background for a representation set in Chicago in 1929. great capitalists, the fragility of Giovanna Dark dei Capelli Neri. looks at it; it allows us to see an image eighteen to twenty-two – twenty-three that would otherwise be too cold. All my years I had no clear ideas. First I wanted life I have created images that are to be an architect, then a painter; for a apparently cold and afterwards I have while I thought of being a great traveller worked with my sensitiveness and and I sailed. Then I was called to design memory on these images, making my set the costumes for the play “Twelfth designs seem more realistic than in fact Night” by Shakespeare. The set designer they were. In fact, my set designs have a was Mario Chiari and he did not want to solid architectural base, humanised by do the costumes. At the beginning I the crust that I apply to them. I think, committed myself to costumes and however, that nearly all my set designs costume-making only because I was were valid even without this realistic unemployed: then the game began to detail. captivate me. Let us return to origins. How did you When did you begin to work as a set begin in the theatre, what was your designer? first approach? When I was twenty-four years old, with The beginning was completely casual. the small store of this first experience, I During my adolescent years I never had the impudence to present myself to thought of becoming a man of the theatre: Felci, asking to do set designs. First he I did not like the theatre. I do not know if laughed a bit, then he gave me a theme I lie or not: in fact many of my childhood design to resolve: it was a theme by friends maintain that even as a young Lorca, something that was fairly easy. child I lived in a sort of theatrical world. When he saw my work he said that I When I came of an age to decide, I chose would become a set designer. First I had to do other things. In the period between to start as a costume designer,

For Santa Giovanna dei macelli (1970) Frigerio opens up the space with an arrangement of grey-walled factories, framed by iron and jute, vaguely echoing a painting by Sironi. The Piccolo Teatro stage has been the scene of many of my designs. It is a space not much bigger than this room where we are speaking now: the proscenium is three metres wide and five metres deep. And yet inside that space an immensity has been created. and then I would be a set designer. So, a memory of what was achieved. My job is to create the time and place in or a detail will not change anything bit by chance, began this passion from What is your opinion on television set which the action occurs. The times and fundamentally. which I have never managed to free designs today? places of action are very different in For the would-be set designer is the myself. I remember with enthusiasm “Leonardo” drama, in opera and in the cinema. The Academy, the studio, or the workshop And your rapport with the cinema? with Castellani: the set designs were a cinema uses times and places that are most important? That came about by chance too. I had a great undertaking. And then there was the based directly on reality: a reality that Neither one nor the other. To work in the very rapid career: when I was thirty years period of great books: the “Karamazov”, although filtered, must be recognisable, workshop can help train professionals. old I left the Piccolo Teatro because at the “Il cappello del prete” … Today I think easy to read. The theatre is moved by The Academy is no use because one beginning there was someone there who that there is little quality, but I’m not sure deep psychological reasons and allows an learns practically nothing, there is too was stronger than me. Stronger in the if the cause is due to the subjects or the exploration of places and events in a much freedom. The Academy does not sense of being more clever. Having left people. Too often television is banal and more cultural way. The basic material in exist any more. The word ‘Academy’ has the Piccolo Teatro, I ventured into a more prolific. Very professional and that is all. opera is more magical, more poetical. a precise meaning: it indicates a place commercial theatre. Commercial in a However, in shows and publicity there The main theme is not the spoken word where one learns academic subjects. If manner of speaking: at that time the are sometimes interesting things, but the music: the set designer is carried the Academy of today has become a theatre produced many very serious although conditioned in the manner of to far off frontiers, very distant from the synonym for absolute freedom it has lost works, even on a commercial level. using the materials. language of drama or the cinema. its function. At one time it was required What time are we speaking about? It happens that all set designers come A question: what would you like to to prepare people who had to carry out We are speaking about 1958. I met Lucio across the same work more than once produce and what have you never had one type of set designing but that now Ardenzi. I introduced myself as an during their career. What sort of crisis the opportunity to do? belongs to the past. Today it has to established set designer and he believed does this produce? I have done little Shakespeare in my life. provide the means that are required to me. I worked on shows like “Spettri”, and It depends on the work. “Arlecchino I love Shakespeare very much and I create for a window or a large department collaborated with companies where servitore di due padroni” is a particular would have liked to have had the store; many small publicity productions, Albertazzi was working. They were case: “Arlecchino” from a certain time opportunity to have undertaken the works small sets, large sets, as well as the pretty important works. And I found onwards became my production. I think it of this great playwright. The difficulty is furnishings. The Academy represented a myself at only thirty years of age as one is important, even though it was not the not to do Shakespeare but to find certainty for the future. Today the future of the most important set designers in most important set design in my life. someone who does Shakespeare in is no longer certain. How is it possible to Italy. Then after many years De Sica “Arlecchino" was a logical development Shakespeare’s way. I am very close to teach people who do not know what has decided to direct in the theatre: “Liolà” without conflict or difficulty. Strehler and, to tell the truth, I have rarely to be done to be a set designer? At least by Pirandello. I was introduced to work “Arlecchino” was of my age, and that of had the chance to work with directors Photo by Gérard Uféras the cinema is based on a very precise for him. And from that came the contract Strehler, and Soleri and Moretti before who are able to give me such strong technique and takes place in surroundings for the first film: “I sequestrati di that. It is a work that has slowly aged stimuli. So while for drama I feel very many assistants who are now well the set design is the fruit of one’s mind. that have been chosen following a clear Altona”. The film was based on a with us. I was a young man when I linked to this person, for opera I feel established, like Tommasi and Pagano, Before, I used to work a great deal on criterion; but what can be said for the theatrical work and was fairly near to my worked on the production for the first more free. Strehler himself, when he for example. In the present period of my design; I made my assistants do hours theatre? One can only say that this does world. I did some work in the cinema for time. Then as my life became richer with directed opera, gave me more freedom. life I find that I do not really need and hours of prospective work. Now it not come out of the Academy. Frankly, I a few years and then, for reasons of my poetical and human knowledge, the more A set designer never works alone. Can assistants. does not interest me any more. I have do not know which is the best school. own, I moved away. Strehler called me age veiled a certain youthful enthusiasm. you tell us about your relationship with Can you tell us about your working arrived at the point at which the creation Perhaps experience? again and made me work in the theatre. Instead, other productions have been a your collaborators? day. is completely mental; the representation I don’t know. I am very uncertain because Afterwards I worked with Bertolucci and struggle. I have redesigned “Le nozze di The relationship with collaborators is At one time my working day began by of the idea has now assumed a secondary I think that the set designing that I did Cavani. I had important but not steady Figaro” with great difficulty because I something that sooner or later comes to going to the studio at nine o’clock, role. should finish. I am a follower of an contacts, also because, due to my could not free my mind from the famous an end. I think that in our lives there are leaving at seven o’clock in the evening When do you decide that the set is exhausted system of set designing. I don’t character, I am not part of the cinema Paris production followed by the one at many moments for all of us. There was a and going to bed after watching a little finished? know and cannot see what our clan. I am very fond of the theatre and the Scala. One would like to redo some time that lasted for many years, perhaps television. Today it is very different: I I think the set is finished when it comes descendants will do. I cannot see there are aspects of the cinema profession productions when one realises that one thirty, when I needed confirmation. I move around and travel a great deal. out of my head, when it has been anything that seems to me interesting to that rather bore me. has made a mistake. Other productions needed confirmation that what I imagined When I have worked on the idea for a designed and is represented by a model. I suggest as a new way. I think that is a And television? are the fruit of a true intuition: and there could be done. However I found the production I call the people in to make a do not believe in the theory, which sign that the culture is ending. When a I do not belong to the television clan it would be more difficult to work on production of the images rather boring: I mock-up of the set. In a few days the Strehler also maintains, that the set is previous civilisation does not teach a either. them again. was afraid that if I dedicated myself production is finished. I no longer have a made in the theatre. The set is made in the future one, it means that its culture has But you worked on important You have designed drama productions personally to them I would fall in love maestro-pupil relationship with my studio in the set designer’s head. When it ended. I think that decadence does not productions like “Leonardo” and “The as well as the opera. How do you with the images as I did them. I collaborators. arrives at the theatre the set design is all only involve set designing: painting and Brothers Karamazov”. change your way of planning the scenic remember excellent creators to whom I How could the profession of a set right. If it is not all right at that time, it architecture are fumbling about and At that time the television proposition space? gave the raw material: they produced the designer develop? will never be right. If it works, the adding searching but cannot see the future. was different and there is an overall It is difficult to understand the difference. images and I selected them. For this I had I think the ways are relatively important: of an object