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A very special opera queen episode profiling an opera queen gone wrong: the Italian opera and film director (of 1968's famous Romeo and Juliet) who fought fascists as a partisan in the hills over Florence, mingled with Visconti and Cocteau and Marais and Chanel, and directed Callas in many of her mid-career triumphs before beginning to harden his style from lush realism to a celebration of set decoration above all. Zeffirelli, born at a time when the last composers whose works still fill the grand opera repertory were dying, faced, like all practitioners of the operatic arts in the 20th century, a choice between making living theatre or dead, ten-ton museum pieces. He chose the museum-piece approach and in so doing did tremendous artistic damage.\nCONTENT WARNING: THIS EPISODE DISCUSSES CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE AND RACIST LANGUAGE.\n----more----\nSee Callas in Tosca in 1964 here.\nSee Leontyne Price's costumes for Antony and Cleopatra here and\xa0 here.\nSee Zeffirelli's MET Opera Turandot set here.\nSee Waltraud Meier sing the Liebestod here.\nSOURCES:\nDuane Byrge, \u201cFranco Zeffirelli, Oscar-Nominated Director for \u2018Romeo and Juliet,\u2019 Dies at 96,\u201d The Hollywood Reporter (blog), June 15, 2019, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/franco-zeffirelli-dead-romeo-juliet-920639/\nRachel Donadio, \u201cMaestro Still Runs the Show, Grandly,\u201d The New York Times, August 18, 2009, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/arts/music/19zeffirelli.html\nRoger Ebert, \u201cRomeo and Juliet Movie Review (1968) | Roger Ebert,\u201d accessed January 31, 2022, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/romeo-and-juliet-1968\nJohanna Fiedler, Molto Agitato: The Mayhem behind the Music at the Metropolitan Opera (New York: Anchor Books, 2003)\n\xa0Jonathan Kandell, \u201cFranco Zeffirelli, Italian Director With Taste for Excess, Dies at 96,\u201d The New York Times, June 15, 2019, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/arts/music/franco-zeffirelli-dead.html\nRebecca Keegan, \u201cThe Dark Side of Franco Zeffirelli: Abuse Accusers Speak Out Upon the Famed Director\u2019s Death,\u201d The Hollywood Reporter (blog), June 18, 2019, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/franco-zeffirelli-abuse-accusers-speak-1219298/\nWayne Koestenbaum, The Queen\u2019s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire (London: Da Capo Press, 2001)\nBarbara McMahon, \u201cZeffirelli Tells All about Priest\u2019s Sexual Assault,\u201d The Guardian, November 21, 2006, sec. World news, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/nov/21/books.film\n\xa0Peter Murphy, \u201cBruce Robinson Interview,\u201d The New Review, accessed January 31, 2022, https://web.archive.org/web/20070707184620/http://www.laurahird.com/newreview/brucerobinson.html\nJohn J. O\u2019Connor, \u201cTV Review; Zeffirelli\u2019s Lavish \u2018Turandot\u2019 at the Met Opera,\u201d The New York Times, January 27, 1988, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/27/arts/tv-review-zeffirelli-s-lavish-turandot-at-the-met-opera.html\nNeda Ulaby, \u201cFranco Zeffirelli, Creator Of Lavish Productions On Screen And Stage, Dies At 96,\u201d NPR, June 15, 2019, sec. Obituaries, https://www.npr.org/2019/06/15/514094174/franco-zeffirelli-creator-of-lavish-productions-on-screen-and-stage-dies-at-96\nDaniel J. Wakin, \u201cFor Opening Night at the Metropolitan, a New Sound: Booing,\u201d The New York Times, September 22, 2009, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/arts/music/23opera.html\nFranco Zeffirelli, Zeffirelli: The Autobiography of Franco Zeffirelli, 1st American ed (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986)\n\u201cOpera: \u2018Falstaff\u2019 Staged by Zeffirelli; New Production of the Met Is Magnificent; Bernstein Conducts \u2014Colzani in Title Role,\u201d The New York Times, March 7, 1964, sec. Archives, https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/07/archives/opera-falstaff-staged-by-zeffirelli-new-production-of-the-met-is.html\nOur intro music is\xa0Arpeggia Colorix\xa0by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distributed under a Creative Commons\xa0Attribution-ShareAlike License. Our outro music is by DJ\xa0Michaeloswell Graphicsdesi