[S. Barber] F. Zeffirelli. Stage set design for the Met production of "Antony and Cleopatra", 1966, signed

[Samuel Barber] Franco Zeffirelli

Stage set design for the New York Metropolitan Opera House production of Samuel Barber's opera Antony and Cleopatra, 1966

executed in gouache and gold paint on canvas, overall size 71.1 x 89.8cm, framed and glazed, SIGNED AND DATED BY THE ARTIST ("Zeffirelli / '66"), manuscript caption ("Franco Zeffirelli / Antony & Cleopatra / Act 2 / Scene 3") to Wright Hepburn Gallery label on back of frame, no place, 1966

A striking set design for the 1966 New York Metropolitan Opera premiere of Antony and Cleopatra, which has gone down in the annals of opera as a disaster of epic proportions - one infamous incident involving the live entombment of Cleopatra (played by Leontyne Price) in the onstage pyramid.

Barber and his stage designer Zeffirelli had fundamentally different ideas about how to adapt Shakespeare's play, the former wanting to focus on the human tragedy, whereas Zeffirelli was inclined to let his imagination run wild through sumptuous costumes and baroque stage set designs which would show off the performance space at the newly constructed Metropolitan Opera House. As Barber recollected, the "production had nothing to do with what I imagined [...] The Met overproduced it", whilst according to Zeffirelli "Sam was writing a pleasant chamber piece [...] not at all the grand epic we had been anticipating" (quoted in Heyman).

The present stunning design magnificently captures Zeffirelli's creative ambitions for his stage sets, for which there was a "huge sphinx [...] erected for the Egyptian scene, turning awesomely one way or another, looming high over the stage" (Heyman).

Something of a companion piece to the present design - 'Caesar’s Victorious Army' in Act 2, Scene 5 - can be found in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

See lots 7, 8, and 54, and also lots 290-291 in the following afternoon sale, Books and Manuscripts, Medieval to Modern (closing 13 December 2022).

LITERATURE

For an account of the production, see Barbara B. Heyman, Barber: the Composer and his Music (2020), passim