Firenze non avrà la mia eredità artistica! Florence will not have my artistic legacy, says Franco Zeffirelli.
Between his body of work including opera productions, writings, films, and television works, Florence can suck it!
Frengo's diss list keeps getting longer. After publicly criticizing a slew of opera singers and opera directors and houses in the past couple years, the Italian maestro of hyper-realistic opera productions (and yeah, some movies) lashed out at Florence's Mayor, Matteo Renzi, in an open letter (and an exclusive interview) to be published in tomorrow's Florence-based daily, La Nazione.
Franco's shopping around a new school devoted to the art of theater -- and he's trying to figure out which city -- and which institution -- will inherit his massive archives (a memorabilia bukkake of papers, sketches, costumes, letters, his library of art books, scores).
Florence seemed to be the front-runner (Moscow, New York, and Rome are apparently part of the game, too).
But now Zeffirelli laments that there are too many unpredictable obstacles and Florence's city hall is not helping. He's therefore threatening to move his school -- and his stuff -- to another city, maybe overseas.
We're sending the cranky Maestro some much needed hugs, and additional pages for his burgeoning ban book!