Zeffirelli’s divas go on show in the hotel, for customers and enthusiasts. The Savoy Hotel in Firenzand, part of the Rocco Forte Hotels group, exhibits about twenty black and white photographs of theZeffirelli archive that they portray the most famous Italian and international actresses and singers with whom the great director has worked in his 70-year career in cinema, theater and opera. They go to Marisa Allasio, the protagonist of the film Camping from 1958, until the last diva directed by the Maestro, the French Fanny Ardant who impersonated Maria Callas in the film Callas Forever released in 2002, Zeffirelli’s last work before illness prevented him from continuing.
Just Fanny Ardant is the godmother of the Florentine exhibition entitled “The divas of Zeffirelli” and runs from the lobby of the five-star hotel to the lounge-lounge, up to the bar-restaurant and the presidential suite. “Zeffirelli was lively, ironic, pleasant, and his anger was amusing too – said Ardant, inaugurating the exhibition in Florence, where the film Callas forever was also screened for the occasion – he was not a “holy man” who talks while everyone listens to him, working with him was a very intense moment in my life ” .
Among the divas portrayed by various photographers are Brooke Shields, Valentina Cortese, Faye Dunaway, Carla Fracci, Anne Bancroft, Anna Magnani, Claudia Cardinale, Elizabeth Taylor, Glenn Close, Monica Bellucci, Katia Ricciarelli, Mariangela Melato, Monica Vitti and Stefani Sandrelli .
The exhibition is the result of the collaboration of the Savoy hotel with the Franco Zeffirelli Foundation which has the headquarters and museum dedicated to the Maestro in Florence, and which is led by Pippo Corsi Zeffirelli. “After the divas, we are planning to continue this project with an exhibition of the stars who worked with Zeffirelli – the president explained – the fact of being in Piazza della Repubblica, where my father was born and raised, is a precious coincidence that gives this project even more value ».