Page 66 - CoESPU Magazine 2017-3

Nobili, the internationally acclaimed painter, illustrator and set and costume designer, and a great
friend and collaborator of Zeffirelli.
Born in Switzerland in 1916 to an Italian father and Hungarian mother, de Nobili moved to Rome in
the 1930s, where she studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti. After her diploma, she began her
career as an illustrator for Vogue. She moved to Paris at the end of World War II and met director
Raymond Rouleau, with whom she made her theatre debut as a scenographer and costume designer
in 1947. From then on until the early 1970s, de Nobili devoted her extraordinary pictorial talent to
theatre, infusing new
life into canvas-painted
scenery. Her work was
never imposing because
de Nobili produced her
own scenery by
personally painting
each element.
Aside from Rouleau,
with whom she worked
for more than 20 years,
de Nobili also worked
with Luchino Visconti,
Gian Carlo Menotti,
Peter Hall and Franco
One of the halls of International Centre for Performing Arts “Franco Zeffirelli”.
Zeffirelli. Her work in
film was somewhat more sporadic, but it culminated in 1968 with The Charge of the Light Brigade
by Tony Richardson.
In 1970, she left the theatre. She resumed her painting studies and attended the Ecole de peinture et
de décoration in Brussels, copying the great masters and giving advice to young students. She
maintained her sense of curiosity and was active in all the artistic and cultural aspects of Parisian
life, but stubbornly rejected almost all the projects she was offered, the only exceptions being a
collaboration with Visconti in 1974 for the Spoleto Festival staging of Manon Lescaut by Giacomo
Puccini, and one with Zeffirelli in 1988, in which she recreated one of her historic Teatro della
Scala scenes of Aida for the film The Young Toscanini. Lila de Nobili died in Paris on 19 February
2002. Upon receiving news of her death, Zeffirelli said she was “the greatest scenographer and
costume designer of the 20th century. The Master of us all. Every time I set about drawing a work, I
think of you."

Written by:

Cecilia Sandroni

International PR
Franco Zeffirelli Foundation Onlus

60