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| Where the real and imaginary meet: artist, creative director and set designer, Professor Gaetano Castelli with one of his paintings at his studio in Rome, Italy. Portrait by Paul McDonnell. Click on pictures for full-screen slideshow |
One of Italy’s great designers, artist Professor Gaetano Castelli
was Director General of Rome's Academy of Fine Arts and works on Italy’s top television programs
including the latest show by Oscar-winning Roberto Benigni & 18 Sanremo
Music Festival extravaganzas plus winning the Rose D’Argento and two Rose d’Oro awards at the Montreux International Television Festival. Today, he is the creative director of the spectacular,
multi-million dollar stage shows at Paris’ Moulin Rouge. Jeanne-Marie Cilento
talks to the gallant and enthusiastic designer at his studio in Rome
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| View across to Villa Medici from the Castelli Studio |
STROLLING through the great walnut doors of a grand palazzo in Rome’s elegant Via Margutta you enter another world. The city’s
cacophony of people and cars disappear as you are enveloped by a green
sanctuary of tall trees and gardens ringed by stately baroque buildings. Like a
village within the city, this sanctuary was the place where Audrey Hepburn and
Gregory Peck filmed Roman Holiday and today is home to film studios, offices
and apartments.
Castelli & Associati is so hidden away up among steep, winding
stairs, stone pathways and flowering trees that someone is always
dispatched to meet visitors and lead them through this beautiful haven. Today,
it is Manuel Bellucci taking me from the
enormous entrance courtyard through the gardens to the studio.
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| Talented designers Chiara Castelli, Gigi Sabbatella & Manuel Bellucci |
Inside, the mezzanine space is a hive of activity as the
studio team work on their many projects which range from theatre to television and fashion to architectural projects. Chiara Castelli, Gaetano’s beautiful blond daughter,
oversees the studio and is a trained artist and designer herself. Like her father
who was the director and a professor at Rome's Accademia di Belle Arti,
she also taught there as well as working at the studio alongside talented designers Manuel
Bellucci and Luigi Sabbatella.
When Professor Gaetano Castelli arrives, he has a commanding presence tempered by a natural charm and grace and perfect manners. Below his leonine mane, he has the smooth, year-round tan and fitness of the avid tennis player. Once we are at his desk, he speaks about his work with great
passion in his signature gravelly voice. He travels across the world for his work and seems to spend half of his time on planes visiting projects from Paris to Macao where a new version of the Moulin Rouge show will open in 2016.
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| Gaetano Castelli with his wife Gail Milissa Grant |
Married to soigné American writer and former diplomat,
Gail Milissa Grant, the United States has also become a frequent stop in his
peripatetic life. The couple have a beautiful home in the heart of Rome which
displays some of Professor Castelli’s paintings which have been exhibited in
Italy and London.
Growing up in Rome, Gaetano Castelli knew from an early age
he was interested in art. His father was an art director and his mother was one
of the first women in Italy to work at a bank. “When I was a young boy my uncle
suggested I become an accountant,” he says. “But I realized I was
made for an artistic career. My mother helped me to follow my dream, she said
to me ‘I want you to do what I could not do which is to follow what you love'.”
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| Minimalist set for Roberto Benigni's 10 Commandments, December 2014 |
Professor Castelli’s career bloomed immediately as he began
not only teaching but also working as an assistant set designer on television
shows. “I started teaching and working in TV at the same time. I began to teach
when I was very young at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. By the time I was 24 I had already started creating the sets for
major television shows and I was travelling across Italy to work especially to
Florence and Torino."
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| A dramatic moving set for the TV program Fantastico 1980-90 |
His career took off as he became the art
director for Italy’s highly popular Saturday evening variety shows. “I was art
directing most of the Saturday variety programs at the Teatro Delle Vittorie such
as Fantastico and Roberto Benigni’s shows. As a performer, Benigni captures the
attention of viewers as he is a great entertainer and he is very expressive and
satirical. He is not only talented by also a humble and sensitive person and
always calls me personally to thank me for the design of his shows.
“I worked at the Teatro Delle Vittorie for 15 years when it
was the peak of variety television in the 1980s. At that time, the Saturday
night shows were a ritual for many people. They wanted to watch something
interesting after dinner, commenting with family and friends, singing the
songs and admiring the dancers.”
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| Sculptural creations for the TV program La Sai L'Ultima 1990-2000 |
Professor Castelli designed and created the sets for numerous other television shows including
Canzonissima, Fantastico, La Sai L'Ultima, Carramba Che Sorpresa, Stasera Pago Io, Studio 80 and Palcoscenico along with the first news programs for Italy’s
state broadcaster RAI and haute couture fashion events such as those for Rome’s
Alta Moda as well as museum exhibitions.
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| Creating the streamlined design for TV show Fiorello in 2011 |
By the 1980s, Professor Castelli was also being asked to design the singing and dancing spectaculars for the famed Parisian theatres, the Lido and
Moulin Rouge. Today, the Castelli team work for five years designing
each multi-million dollar production creating not only the enormous and
technically complex and elaborate sets and lighting but also every detail of
the famed dancers’ costumes. Once the design of the Moulin Rouge shows are
finished they are on stage in Paris for more than a decade.
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| Painting by Gaetano Castelli Rome, 2007 |
“In 1984, I started to work at Moulin Rouge and for the Lido.
The new show for Moulin Rouge is set to open in 2017 and takes years of work to
produce. It’s very important to create harmony between all of the different
elements of the design from the lights to the costumes. Everything must work
together to create the right atmosphere, there must be coherence in the lights,
scene and costume.”
Gaetano Castelli has created beautiful drawings and paintings of
costumes and his capacity to not only see the big picture of the set design but
also to focus on every detail of the costumes is one of his outstanding
talents. “I see the dresses of the dancers like pieces of architecture with
particular lines, curves, perspectives and diagonals which are all designed to
create a strong visual effect," he says. "I also try to imagine the face of the person who
wears the costumes and express the soul of the dancer through the
design. Costumes should make you dream.”
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| Designing the La Dolce Vita set for the Sanremo Music Festival in 2011 |
It is hard to overstate the importance of the historic
Sanremo Music Festival as one of the biggest events on Italian television for
more than sixty years. For a week in February, everyone watches and follows the show and
the singers, if only to fiercely criticize them. The Castelli studio has worked
on eighteen of them and each time Gaetano Castelli tries to come up with something
new and outdo all of the previous shows.
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| A colourful retro design for the Sanremo Festival in 2004 |
“Working on Sanremo I look back at what I have done to make sure that I don’t
repeat the same look or theme again. And I keep up with the latest technology
in computer programs and lighting so our designs are also cutting edge.”
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| A technically complex, clam-like shell featured at Sanremo 2012 |
When he was the director at Rome’s Art Academy and teaching
set design he worked with students from around the world and has travelled
across Europe and China to take
workshops on the art of graphic and set design.
“I love working with students from across the globe," he explains.
"My advice to young designers is to be open to everything and prepared to work
on a range of things from the set of a movie to designing a business card or the
cover of a music album. It is important when you are young to start with small jobs
not with something too big. The artist needs to emerge step by step and be
appreciated and recognized for his talent then he gains the trust of great
directors."
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| Hand-drawn sketch for the set of TV program Rock Politik |
Set design has been very important in the history of
theatre and opera since it was created on canvas and paper. "When I started,
everything was still painted by hand and the set designer had to learn how to create
small, important details that catch the attention of the audience," Professor Castelli says. "An art
director must be very skilled in a lot of fields from painting, drawing,
printing, perspective and be ready to also work without a computer. “
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| Painting by Gaetano Castelli Rome, 2005 |
Although the Castelli team use complex animation,
graphic and engineering software to design colossal systems of lighting and moving sets, Professor Castelli prefers to create the original
designs by drawing and painting.
“I don’t ever tire of my work and I always enjoy
designing each new production,” he says today. “Whenever I go on holiday I
really miss the work as it is very creative and gives you so much energy.”
Click on pictures for full-screen slideshow
