Mario Lanfranchi

Mario Lanfranchi (born Parma, Italy, June 30, 1927) is an Italian film, theatre and television director, screenwriter, producer, collector and actor.

After receiving a degree at the Drama Academy (Accademia dei Filodrammatici) of Milan in the early 1950s, he was hired by Sergio Pugliese at RAI, at the onset of Italian television. He was the first to bring opera to the small screen, in 1956, with Madama Butterfly, by Giacomo Puccini, which introduced to a wide public Anna Moffo, at that time an unknown American soprano, who became his wife (1957–1974 div.).

In 1967 he began his career as a film director with the western movie Sentenza di morte (Sentence of Death).

He lives in a 16th Century villa in Santa Maria del Piano outside Parma.

Since childhood he absorbed at home the atmosphere of theatre and music. He was even held at baptism by two famous singers of the period, the tenor Francesco Merli and the soprano Mercedes Caspir, and as a very young man he was personally acquainted with some of the most notable singers, including Maria Caniglia, Ebe Stignani, Beniamino Gigli, Gino Bechi as well as promising operatic newcomers like Mario Del Monaco.

His father Guido (1895–1957), a music enthusiast and especially an opera-lover, had been the president of the theatre commission and later the superintendent of the Teatro Regio (Royal Theatre) of Parma, and was later entrusted with other important responsibilities in the field of editing and administration of the daily newspaper Il Tempo di Milano, besides Il Sole and 24 Ore, two important financial dailies that later merged under the single banner of Il Sole 24 Ore.

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