Life

Luchino Visconti was born into a prominent noble family in Milan, one of seven children of Giuseppe Visconti di Modrone, Duke of Grazzano Visconti and Count of Lonate Pozzolo, and his wife Carla (née Erba, heiress to Erba Pharmaceuticals). He was formally known as Count don Luchino Visconti di Modrone, and his family is a branch of the House of Visconti. In his early years, he was exposed to art, music and theatre: he studied cello with the Italian cellist and composer Lorenzo de Paolis (1890-1965) and met the composer Giacomo Puccini, the conductor Arturo Toscanini and the writer Gabriele D'Annunzio.

During World War II, Visconti joined the Italian Communist Party.

Visconti made no secret of his homosexuality. His last partner was the Austrian actor Helmut Berger, who played Martin in Visconti's film The Damned. Berger also appeared in Visconti's Ludwig in 1972 and Conversation Piece in 1974, along with Burt Lancaster. Other lovers included Franco Zeffirelli, who also worked as part of the crew in production design, as assistant director, and other roles in a number of Visconti's films, operas, and theatrical productions.

Visconti suffered a stroke in 1972, but continued to smoke heavily. He died in Rome of another stroke at the age of 69. There is a museum dedicated to the director's work in Ischia.

Career

Films

He began his filmmaking career as an assistant director on Jean Renoir's Toni (1935) and Partie de campagne (1936), thanks to the intercession of their common friend, Coco Chanel. After a short tour of the United States, where he visited Hollywood, he returned to Italy to be Renoir's assistant again, this time for La Tosca (1939), a production that was interrupted and later completed by German director Karl Koch because of World War II.

Together with Roberto Rossellini, Visconti joined the salotto of Vittorio Mussolini (the son of Benito, who was then the national arbitrator for cinema and other arts). Here he presumably also met Federico Fellini. With Gianni Puccini, Antonio Pietrangeli and Giuseppe De Santis, he wrote the screenplay for his first film as director: Ossessione (Obsession, 1943), the first neorealist movie and an unofficial adaptation of the novel The Postman Always Rings Twice.

In 1948, he wrote and directed La terra trema (The Earth Trembles), based on the novel I Malavoglia by Giovanni Verga. In the book by Silvia Iannello, Le immagini e le parole dei Malavoglia, the author selects some passages of the Verga novel, adds original comments and Acitrezza's photographic images, and devotes a chapter to the origins, remarks and frames taken from the movie.

Visconti continued working throughout the 1950s, although he veered away from the neorealist path with his 1954 film, Senso, shot in colour. Based on the novella by Camillo Boito, it is set in Austrian-occupied Venice in 1866. In this film, Visconti combines realism and romanticism as a way to break away from neorealism. However, as one biographer notes, "Visconti without neorealism is like Lang without expressionism and Eisenstein without formalism". He describes the film as the "most Viscontian" of all Visconti's films. Visconti returned to neorealism once more with Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers, 1960), the story of Southern Italians who migrate to Milan hoping to find financial stability. In 1961, he was a member of the jury at the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival.

Throughout the 1960s, Visconti's films became more personal. Il Gattopardo (The Leopard, 1963), is based on Lampedusa's novel of the same name about the decline of the Sicilian aristocracy at the time of the Risorgimento. It starred American actor Burt Lancaster in the role of Prince Don Fabrizio. This film was distributed in America and Britain by Twentieth-Century Fox, which deleted important scenes. Visconti repudiated the Twentieth-Century Fox version.

It was not until The Damned (1969) that Visconti received a nomination for an Academy Award, for "Best Screenplay". The film, one of Visconti's best-known works, concerns a German industrialist's family which slowly begins to disintegrate during the Nazi consolidation of power at the 30s. Its decadence and lavish beauty are characteristic of Visconti's aesthetic.

Visconti's final film was The Innocent (1976), in which he returns to his recurring interest in infidelity and betrayal.

Theatre

Visconti was also a celebrated theatre and opera director. During the years 1946 to 1960 he directed many performances of the Rina Morelli-Paolo Stoppa Company with actor Vittorio Gassman as well as many celebrated productions of operas.

Visconti's love of opera is evident in the 1954 Senso, where the beginning of the film shows scenes from the fourth act of Il trovatore, which were filmed at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. Beginning when he directed a production at Milan's Teatro alla Scala of La vestale in December 1954, his career included a famous revival of La traviata at La Scala in 1955 with Maria Callas and an equally famous Anna Bolena (also at La Scala) in 1957 with Callas. A significant 1958 Royal Opera House (London) production of Verdi's five-act Italian version of Don Carlos (with Jon Vickers) followed, along with a Macbeth in Spoleto in 1958 and a famous black-and-white Il trovatore with scenery and costumes by Filippo Sanjust at the Royal Opera House in 1964. In 1966 Visconti's luscious Falstaff for the Vienna State Opera conducted by Leonard Bernstein was critically acclaimed. On the other hand, his austere 1969 Simon Boccanegra with the singers clothed in geometrical costumes provoked controversy.

Filmography

Feature films

Year	Original title	International English title	Awards
1943	Ossessione	Obsession
1948	La terra trema	The Earth Will Tremble	Won - Special International Award (Venice Film Festival) Nominated - Grand International Prize of Venice
1951	Bellissima	Bellissima
1954	Senso	Senso or The Wanton Countess	Nominated - Golden Lion
1957	Le notti bianche	White Nights	Won - Silver Lion Nominated - Golden Lion
1960	Rocco e i suoi fratelli	Rocco and His Brothers	Won - Special Prize (Venice Film Festival) Won - FIPRESCI Prize (Venice Film Festival) Nominated - Golden Lion
1963	Il gattopardo	The Leopard	Won - Palme d'Or
1965	Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa	Sandra	Won - Golden Lion
1967	Lo straniero	The Stranger	Nominated - Golden Lion
1969	La caduta degli dei	The Damned	Nominated - Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
1971	Morte a Venezia	Death in Venice	Won - 25th Anniversary Prize (Cannes Film Festival) Nominated - BAFTA Award for Best Direction
1972	Ludwig	Ludwig
1974	Gruppo di famiglia in un interno	Conversation Piece
1976	L'innocente	The Innocent

Other films

• Giorni di gloria (it), documentary, 1945
• Appunti su un fatto di cronaca, short film, 1951
• Siamo donne (We, the Women), 1953, episode Anna Magnani
• Boccaccio '70, 1961, based on the episode Il lavoro in Boccaccio's Decameron
• Le streghe (The Witches), 1967, episode La strega bruciata viva
• Alla ricerca di Tadzio (it), TV movie, 1970

Opera

Year	Title and Composer	Opera House	Principal cast / Conductor
1954	La vestale, Gaspare Spontini	Teatro alla Scala, Milan	Maria Callas, Franco Corelli, Ebe Stignani, Nicola Zaccaria Conducted by Antonino Votto
1955	La sonnambula, Vincenzo Bellini,	La Scala	Maria Callas, Cesare Valletti, Giuseppe Modesti Conducted by Leonard Bernstein
1955	La traviata, Giuseppe Verdi	La Scala	Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Ettore Bastianini Conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini
1957	Anna Bolena, Gaetano Donizetti	La Scala	Maria Callas, Giulietta Simionato, Nicola Rossi-Lemeni Conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni
1957	Iphigénie en Tauride, Christoph Willibald Gluck	La Scala	Maria Callas, Franceso Albanese, Anselmo Colzani, Fiorenza Cossotto Conducted by Nino Sanzogno
1958	Don Carlo, Verdi	Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London	Jon Vickers, Tito Gobbi, Boris Christoff, Gré Brouwenstijn Conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini
1958	Macbeth, Verdi	Spoleto Festival, Italy	William Chapman & Dino Dondi; Ferruccio Mazzoli & Ugo Trama;Shakeh Vartenissian. Conducted by Thomas Schippers
1959	Il duca d'Alba, Donizetti	Spoleto Festival	Luigi Quilico, Wladimiro Ganzarolli, Franco Ventriglia, Renato Cioni, Ivana Tosini. Conductor: Thomas Schippers
1961	Salome, Richard Strauss	Spoleto Festival	George Shirley, Lili Chookasian, Margarei Tynes, Robert Anderson, Paul Arnold. Conductor: Thomas Schippers
1963	Il diavolo in giardino, Franco Mannino (1963)	Teatro Massimo, Palermo	Ugo Benelli, Clara Petrella, Gianna Galli, Antonio Annaloro, Antonio Boyer. Conductor: Enrico Medioli. Libretto: Visconti & Filippo Sanjust
1963	La traviata, Verdi	Spoleto Festival	Franca Fabbri, Franco Bonisolli, Mario Basiola Conducted by Robert La Marchina
1964	Le nozze di Figaro, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart	Teatro dell'Opera di Roma Rome	Rolando Panerai, Uva Ligabue, Ugo Trama, Martella Adani, Stefania Malagù. Conductor: Carlo Maria Giulini
1964	Il trovatore	Bolshoi Opera, Moscow (September)	Pietro Cappuccilli, Gabriella Tucci, Giulietta Simionato, Carlo Bergonzi Conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni
1964	Il trovatore, Verdi	Royal Opera House, London (November) (Sanjust production)	Peter Glossop, Gwyneth Jones & Leontyne Price, Giulietta Simionato, Bruno Prevedi Conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini
1965	Don Carlo, Verdi	Rome Opera	Cesare Siepi, Gianfranco Cecchele, Kostas Paskalis, Martti Talvela, Suzanne Sarroca, Mirella Boyer. Conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini.
1966	Falstaff, Verdi	Staatsoper, Vienna	Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Rolando Panerai, Murray Dickie, Erich Kunz, Ilva Ligabue, Regina Resnik. Conducted by Leonard Bernstein
1966	Der Rosenkavalier, Strauss	Royal Opera House, London	Sena Jurinac, Josephine Veasey, Michael Langdon. Conductor: Georg Solti
1967	La traviata, Verdi	Royal Opera House, London	Mirella Freni, Renato Cioni, Piero Cappuccilli. Conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini
1969	Simon Boccanegra, Verdi	Vienna Staatsoper, Vienna	Eberhard Wächter, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Gundula Janowitz, Carlo Cossutta Conducted by Josef Krips
1973	Manon Lescaut, Giacomo Puccini	Spoleto Festival	Nancy Shade, Harry Theyard, Angelo Romero, Carlo Del Bosco. Conductor: Thomas Schippers.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]