Obituary: Italian Director Filippo Crivelli Passes Away, Aged 93

By Logan Martell

On February 6, 2022, renowned Italian theatre director Filippo Crivelli passed away at the age of 93.

Born in Milan on March 27, 1928, Crivelli worked as an assistant to Tatiana Pvlova and Franco Zeffirelli at La Sclana, where he would work with figures such as Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Montserrat Caballe, and Luciano Pavarotti, among others. Notable productions he directed include the 1976 “Luisa Miller,” and the 1995 “La fille du regiment.” With La Scala’s chamber theatre, the Piccola Scala, he directed a number of 18th century opera, as well as recitals and avant-garde works.

Since the 60s, Crivelli has been a leader of promoting folk songs from the Milanese tradition. At the Teatro Gerolamo near the Duomo he createdrecitals by artsrts such as Maria Monti, Laura Betti, Ornella Vanoni, Rosalina Neri, and more. He also collaborated with RAI TV for a series of radio programs dedicated to Milanese song, prominent artists, and more.

“The management, artists and workers of La Scala are mourning the death of Filippo Crivelli,” wrote the theater in a press release. “Pippo, as we all called him, embodied with intelligence, irony, tenderness and perfidy the thousand faces of Milanese theatre in the second half of the 20th century, exploring worlds and interweaving languages, from opera to ballet, song and prose on the stages of theatres both large and small, and also on television and radio. With him, Milan and all Italian theatre has lost a central character and a witness of inexhaustible curiosity and melancholic joy.”

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