Giuseppe Patroni Griffi (Naples, February 27, 1921 - Rome, December 15, 2005 ) was an Italian director, playwright, screenwriter, writer and artistic director.
Giuseppe Patroni Griffi (Naples, February 27, 1921 - Rome, December 15, 2005 ) was an Italian director, playwright, screenwriter, writer and artistic director.
Of an aristocratic family, he is considered one of the most versatile personalities of the Italian cultural panorama of the second half of the twentieth century; a maverick driven by a strong sense of intellectual freedom. Writer of novels and short stories, author of films and screenplays, he dedicated his life above all to the art of theatre: author of successful comedies and miseur en scene of complex and refined shows (lyric and prose), always based on an elegance and a beauty never without authoritative wit. To remember the fruitful artistic collaboration with the so-called group of the Young (De Lullo-Falk-Guarnieri-Valli) of which he became company playwright. In 1978 De Lullo himself entrusted him with the artistic direction of the newborn Piccolo Eliseo in Rome, a space that Patroni Griffi managed to make the most of by bringing on stage the new international dramaturgy of the time; he held the post until 1981. Subsequently he was artistic director of the Eliseo theater in Rome (2002-2005). The Sala del Piccolo has been named after him .
Despite his noble birth, he had an economically troubled childhood due to the early death of his father: Felice Patroni Griffi (1866-1925), the son of Giuseppe and Veneranda Gioia, Baron of Faivano; in 1902 he married Baroness Laura de Gemmis (1874-1908), who died prematurely without heirs; in his second marriage he married Zenobia Priante (1890-1967), known as Bina. For professional reasons (the paternal family ran an important farm in Corato in Puglia) and also for health reasons, the visits of the father to the new wife were sporadic, however they had two children, Veneranda (1920-2005), called Vanda, and Giuseppe, called Peppino. It was therefore the mother, a woman of strong character, who was the first to leave the imprint of her cinematographic passion in her son, taking him with her to see practically all the films that came from Hollywood to Naples, to the Corona cinema: Rudolph Valentino, Ramón Novarro, Charlie Chaplin , but above all Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, became icons for Patroni Griffi with whom to compare his artistic refinement in the future. Since his adolescence Patroni Griffi showed a great predilection for literature, fueled by the common interest of his school friends: a culturally very close-knit group of enlightened young people, later nicknamed the boys of via Chiaja, which included Raffaele La Capria, Antonio Ghirelli, Francesco Rosi, Francesco Compagna, Maurizio Barendson, Tommaso Giglio, Achille Millo, Pasquale Prunas and, the youngest, Giorgio Napolitano. Grown culturally during the period of greatest conformism, thanks to school attendance and precious readings above all of the great Russian writers and the new Americans, increasingly in love with democracy and freedom, above all with the freedom to write, he developed ideas and ideologies opposite to those cultivated by the regime. He contributed to the creation of some theatrical performances as an author, as a director and as a set and costume designer. Together with Antonio Ghirelli, in fact, he wrote at least three comedies (never published). In 1940, as soon as he enrolled at the University, the young fascist Giuseppe Patroni Griffi presented in the Theater Competition, organized by the Prelittoriali dello Spettacolo, a comedy written with Ghirelli. Also noteworthy is the staging (April 1943) of Ugo Betti's La casa sull'acqua, directed by Giorgio Napolitano, a show organized by the Guf and whose poster has been recovered which reads sketches by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi. His university career (enrolled in the Faculty of Law in 1940, at the Royal University of Naples) was tormented by serious attacks of duodenal ulcer, an illness which however caused him, after various intervals of convalescence, unlimited leave from military service. However, from 28 February 1941, he was for short periods stationed in Verona, 8th Artillery Regiment, div. Pasubio, and there he realized he was homosexual. During the German occupation, to face the economic difficulties (his father died, the da Corato uncles tried to suspend all relations with Neapolitan relatives), Patroni Griffi was employed in the Agricultural Consortium, and later, with the arrival of the Americans, managed to win, together with his friend Antonio Ghirelli, the coveted post of commentator on Radio Napoli Pwb (Psychological Warfare Branch), under the direction of Elvio H. Sadun, head of the entertainment section. A work performance that lasted a few months, during which, however, their prose and music program was much appreciated, to the point that, as soon as the contract was canceled due to the reduction of allied activities, both Ghirelli and Patroni Griffi were immediately hired by Rai: the first called to direct Radio Bologna Libera, the other in force at the headquarters in via delle Botteghe Oscure in Rome.
A pupil of Luchino Visconti and Ettore Giannini, he directed, among others, the actors Charlotte Rampling, Elizabeth Taylor, Marcello Mastroianni, Florinda Bolkan, Terence Stamp and Laura Antonelli. Patroni Griffi directed a television edition of Tosca by Giacomo Puccini for Rai 1 (Tosca, in the places and hours of Tosca, live worldwide from Rome, with Plácido Domingo (Cavaradossi), Catherine Malfitano (Tosca ), Ruggero Raimondi (Scarpia), Giacomo Prestia (Angelotti), Giorgio Gatti (Sacrestano) and the RAI Symphony Orchestra of Rome conducted by Zubin Mehta), with which he won the Emmy Award, then, on June 3-4 2000, La traviata by Giuseppe Verdi (La traviata in Paris), always live worldwide from Paris. Traviata also won the Emmy Award for best film and best television direction, as well as the Prix Italia 2001. In the field of opera he staged Cosi fan tutte al the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Il Trovatore at the Arena in Verona and La bohème at the Teatro Regio in Turin, on the centenary of the first performance. Based on a text by him, entitled My heart is in the south, Bruno Maderna composed a radio ballad. In 2001, the third edition of the Lodi Città Film Festival dedicated the first complete retrospective of directorial and screenplay films to him. In 2005 he was publicly celebrated by the Naples Prize Foundation, an award he had already won in 1970. Patroni Griffi is the subject of the documentary In memory of a gentleman friend, directed by Rocco Talucci, produced in 2009.
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