Eugenio Zanetti, the Argentine director, filmmaker, painter and stage designer who won an Academy Award for his work in film, died on Sept. 18 at 79. He collapsed during rehearsals for a production of Offenbach's "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. No cause of death has been made public.

Zanetti was born on Oct. 19, 1946, in Argentina. Over a career that spanned drama, painting, film set design, and theater and opera direction, he built a body of work that moved fluidly between the visual and performing arts.

Early in his career, Zanetti joined the production team for Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1969 film "Medea," the adaptation of the Euripides tragedy starring Maria Callas in her most significant screen role. The collaboration placed the young Argentine at the intersection of European auteur cinema and operatic legend — a position that would define much of his subsequent work.

His opera productions ranged widely across the repertoire. He staged Verdi's "Nabucco," Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" and "Tosca," and Offenbach's "Les Contes d'Hoffmann." It was the latter work that occupied his final days: he was in rehearsal for a new staging of the Offenbach opera at the Teatro Colón, one of the most storied opera houses in the Americas and the theater at the center of Buenos Aires' operatic life.

Zanetti's film work brought him Hollywood's highest recognition. According to the obituary published by OperaWire, he received an Academy Award and an Oscar for his contributions to cinema — honors that confirmed a versatility few stage designers of his generation achieved.

His paintings and visual art reached audiences beyond the theater. His work was exhibited in Los Angeles, Rome, Córdoba, Buenos Aires and Seville, among other cities — a geographic spread that mirrored a career built on both sides of the Atlantic and across disciplines.

The circumstances of his death carry a particular weight for the opera world. Zanetti died inside the Teatro Colón, mid-process on a production of the same opera — "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" — that stood among his signature repertoire pieces. The production was part of the Teatro Colón's programming in Buenos Aires, a house that continues to anchor the region's operatic calendar.

Zanetti is remembered as a rare figure who worked at the highest level as a dramatist, painter, film set designer, and theater and opera director simultaneously. His death, at 79 and still actively rehearsing, closes a career that remained in motion until its final hours. The Teatro Colón's staging of "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" will now proceed without its director, and the house has yet to announce how the production will be completed.