Luciano Damiani

Luciano Damiani (1923–2007) was an Italian stage and costume designer, who worked both for theatre and opera productions.

Damiani studied painting and only by chance started working for the stage. Soon he became a close collaborator of Giorgio Strehler at Milan's Piccolo Teatro. International fame came with his famous stage designs for Goldoni's Le baruffe chiozzote (Piccolo Teatro, 1964, staged by Strehler) and for Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Salzburg Festival 1965 (staged by Strehler, conducted by Zubin Mehta). This production soon became legendary and was revived several times until 1975.

In 1966 Damiani created his first stage design for La Scala (Cavalleria rusticana, staged by Strehler, and conducted by Herbert von Karajan). This production was filmed and eventually televised on PBS's Great Performances.

His debut at the Vienna State Opera was a controversial Don Giovanni in 1967 (staged by Otto Schenk, conducted by Josef Krips, with Cesare Siepi as the Don). In accordance with Schenk Damiani emphasized the opera's comic and ironic elements and chose to use elements of Northern Italian rather than Spanish architecture which surprised many viewers, resulting in controversies between Damiani and Krips. When Damiani appeared before the curtain he was both applauded and booed by the audience.

In the late 1960s Damiani started working predominantly with other directors rather than Strehler and even started directing himself. In 1969 he directed as well as designed Aida for the Arena di Verona Festival (revived in 1970), though from time to time Damiani returned to the Piccolo Teatro and Strehler. He designed the sets for a noted 1974 production of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. In 1974 both Strehler and Damiani returned to the Salzburg Festival for an ill fated production of Die Zauberflöte conducted by Karajan.

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