Ezio Frigerio, set and costume designer

Ezio Frigerio was born in the village of Erba in Como county. He left his studies in natural science and obtained a diploma at the Brera Fine Arts Academy. Subsequently, he enrolled at the Savona Maritime Academy and later served as an apprentice on a ship. For years he worked in many different trades but even at that time his main interest was the fine arts. Pointing to this, was the way he persevered in teaching himself at the Como studio of Mario Radice. In 1955 he met Strehler who directed him towards stage design. He started work as a costume designer at the Piccolo Theatre in Milan and contributed to some productions there between 1955 and 1959. At the same time, he made his appearance as a stage designer in the Italian theatre. In 1960, he left the Piccolo Theatre and designed the sets for numerous significant theatre productions of the period. From the point of view of his career, his meeting with Vittorio De Sica in 1962 was a decisive moment. They formed a close friendship and working relationship. His career in films began with De Sica (The Prisoners of Altona, Yesterday, today and tomorrow, The boom, known in Hungary as An eye for an eye) and was fulfilled in films with Mauro Bolognini, Franco Rossi, Renato Castellani and Volker Schlondorff. He also worked on such significant films as Bertolucci's Twentieth Century and Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Cyrano de Bergerac.

Though Ezio Frigerio's artistic career is connected first and foremost with Giorgio Strehler, his friend and also his teacher, during his career lasting half a century to date, he also worked with many other directors.

Frigerio considers himself mainly a stage designer and in that capacity, has taken part in the creation of more than 250 productions in the world's most important theatres from Milan to Paris, from Bueons Aires to Stockholm, from New York to Tokyo, from Düsseldorf to Zürich, from Geneva to Toulouse and from Lyons to Rio de Janeiro.

Apart from the Piccolo Theatre in Milan, he has had especially close ties with the Paris Opera House, where he designed the stage sets for numerous Rudolf Nureyev ballets and the Théatre National Populaire in Villeurbanne. His partner in life and work is Franca Squarciapino, the costume designer, who he married in 1974. During his long career, he has been awarded many prizes and paid many tributes.