Vittoria Crespi Morbio

Trained under the exacting yet loving guidance of set designer Ezio Frigerio, her lifelong partner, Franca Squarciapino (born 1940) established herself in the world of Italian costume design through her hardworking tenacity and brilliant imagination. Rigorous historical research, in her stagings preserving the illusion of realism, is combined with an experimental, creative flair that has led her to daring solutions in the use and treatment of materials and colours.

The result is a long line of productions that have gone down in the history of international theatre over the last half century, in particular at La Scala, upon which Franca Squarciapino has lavished her talent at the service of Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Massenet, Puccini, Prokofiev, in both opera and ballet. Her work in the field of film, which is just as important, brought her an Oscar in 1991 for Cyrano de Bergerac by Jean-Paul Rappeneau.