the Wizard of Lights

Thanks to the donation of the Baroni family, the Zeffirelli Museum will permanently host some of the  most significant pieces of stage lighting by Guido Baroni, the “Wizard of lights”, experimenter of light techniques and, very often, maker and builder, in collaboration with the theatre workshops, of the equipment he used during his long career as a light designer.

Guido Baroni worked for the first time with Franco Zeffirelli as a young man at the Teatro della Fiaba, and then he met again many years later in the great shows at the Maggio Fiorentino.

“The light in the theatre not only recreates the space, but is in direct relation with the text and music, emphasizing its rhythms, moods and enjoyment: it is an indispensable dramaturgical sign.
The lighting design for the show is born first of all from a comparison with the director, the costume designer and the set designer on the text and its setting. The collaboration in team of these professionals with the author of the lights is fundamental to interpret the contents of the theatrical staging in a modern and artistic form. Assuming a pictorial use of lights, these can be naturalistic, symbolic or metaphysical, depending on the direction pursued.
Lighting design is a complex operation that does not limit itself to the plan and assembly but it is expressed through the needs and emotions of the text, time and scenic” 
(Guido Baroni)

Guido Baroni, born in Florence on 29 November 1924, studied technical subjects and then continued his work as a theatre electrician alongside his father, who created lighting installations.
He was a teacher of lighting technology at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence from 1971 to 1978 and has conducted various training courses for theater electricians throughout Italy, teaching the new generation of technicians and lighting authors, Teaching them to invent new technical and creative solutions, even artisanal ones, stimulated by the needs of the director and the staging.