Alberto Savinio at La Scala
by Vittoria Crespi Morbio.
Essay by Vittoria Crespi Morbio, Melancholy of the Gaze.
Appendices: biography; catalogue of works; chronology of performances.
Collection «Performing Artists at La Scala».
Amici della Scala – Grafiche Step Editrice, Parma, 2015.
Italian – English edition, pp. 156.
To his manifold activities, Alberto Savinio (Athens, 1891 – Rome, 1952) began to join that of scenographer and costume designer in 1948 when he signed the staging of Stravinsky’s Œdipus Rex for La Scala. The sets and costumes are a little-known part of his legacy, but we can recognise in them the recurrent themes in his art: the disturbing presence of the eye, faceless human figures, archaeology revisited through Surrealism, oversized objects, the polarity between pleasure and melancholy.