Luzzati Meets Gassman

The meeting between Lele Luzzati and Vittorio Gassman took place in 1949, following a performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Nervi Ballet Festival. That encounter marked Luzzati’s entry into Italy’s major theatre scene. On display at Casa Luzzati are original costume designs, stage photographs, posters and sketches for productions including Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen (1950) and Thyestes by Seneca (1952), together with material related to Mario Monicelli’s film L’Armata Brancaleone (1966). The exhibition also features record covers designed by Luzzati in the early 1960s for a series of 45 rpm recordings in which Gassman reads great works of classical literature.

Luzzati later recalled: “Gassman sent me a postcard that read: ’I am Vittorio Gassman. I have seen Lea Lebowitz*. I am about to stage Ibsen’s* Peer Gynt*, with masks and many costumes, and I would like you to design them, if you agree. […] Warm regards.’ Gassman—already the great Gassman, director of Italy’s leading theatre company—was the one writing, asking, adapting. They were different times. People truly believed in the artistic value of what they created, so much so that, although I was just starting out, I turned down commissions simply because I was convinced they would not work.”*

At Casa Luzzati from 6 July to 18 September 2022. Free admission.

The exhibition accompanies the major retrospective dedicated to Vittorio Gassman at Palazzo Ducale, held in the Sottoporticato.