Franco Zeffirelli

You enter with a lot of idealism.

As a matter of fact, and this was another thing besides the books, which we're doing enough to create something in my head, right? It was the year that Franco Zeffirelli came out with Brother Sun, Sister Moon.

And I had gone to see the movie.

Right after I became Catholic with another friend of mine.

What's a bad chicken in media, though? I'd say a bad chicken is like...

In Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet, when he's getting washed in a bathtub and they're just like to create the sense that you're on a farmyard in a village scene and they're not really used.

That would be a bad chicken in media.

I guess there's a lot of chickens in media that are just running around to make it seem like, oh, this place is chaos and everything's muddy.

I went to see this past weekend the production of La Boheme by Buccini at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

This is a... 2026 production, but it's a revival of an older design by the great designer Zeffirelli.

It's a quite legendary production.

The costumes and sets are in the basement.

And I think there will be critics who will say that kind of cultural confidence is misplaced.

What about other things that other people do? Who's to say? Who's to say why someone has the authority to proclaim this and not that? But maybe we can't get along without it either.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about on my way in and out to watch Zeffirelli's Donkeys and Horses in his extraordinary setting of this amazing part in this amazing venue in this great city.

Thanks so much for joining me this week on The David Frum Show.

They go on forever.

Another role that, or another production that you had to enjoy, I'd be surprised if you didn't, was when you did Figaro with, in a production by Franco Zeffirelli.

No, it was with Zeffirelli, it was 1990.

I'm talking about Don

And then, a year later, in 1967, Burton made his directorial debut with Dr Faustus, with Taylor appearing in a silent role as Helen of Troy.

This, however, was critically panned, and it was fortunate that they followed it up with a far more successful film, which was Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Franco Zeffirelli.

By the end of 1967, the combined box office gross of the films that the two had appeared in reached $200 million, which would be $2.5 billion today.

In 1968, Burton starred without Taylor in the World War II blockbuster Where Eagles Dare, and he followed this in 1969 playing Henry VIII in the film Anne of a Thousand Days.

Yeah, it's decent.

I mean, have you ever seen the Franco Zeffirelli version? No.

Is

that the...

Well, it's funny because when I was a kid, I was obsessed with Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, the Kevin Costner movie.

And I was just wanting to watch that all the time.

And my mom was like, hey, how about we watch Hamlet, the Mel Gibson version, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, that came out in the early 90s.

And she goes, how about we watch Hamlet? It takes place around the time of Robin Hood.

"I will also attend the Metropolitan Opera performing Puccini's, Puccini's La bohème on Saturday night.

It is a Franco Zeffirelli traditional production." That's wonderful.

Um, so I won't be at the p- at, at the opera 'cause I, Friday morning early, I leave for Porto Alegre in, uh, in Brazil, where on Sunday I'm doing a day-long seminar on capitalism.

But I- I'll just say that when I was in Florence...

Yes.

When I was in Florence, I went this-- A few weeks ago, I went to the Franco Zeffirelli Museum, which is fantastic.

Uh, y- lots of photographs of, of his sets, of his, uh, productions, lots of photographs of the great actresses and the great opera singers that performed with him.

Some, uh, you know, some, uh, tracks of Maria Callas singing and others.

You have to go to Bethlehem to give birth to this child.

And it's such a great line that Zeffirelli gives to Joseph.

And he says, mm-hmm, so even Caesar will obey God.

Isn't that cool? So Caesar, by calling for the census and bringing, therefore, Joseph, who had to return to his homeland for the census, but whose wife was pregnant at the time and about to give birth, Caesar was playing into the plan of God that the child to be born who would be Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, as was prophesied, so that it would be born in the city of David, where David was anointed king.