Ezio Frigerio was born in 1930 in Erba, province of Como, Italy. He graduated as an architect at Brera in Milan in 1948. In 1955, he met Giorgio Strehler, a theatre director and founder of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, in the master workshop of Marco Radice in Como. He was encouraged to dedicate himself to scenography. Frigerio began his professional career as a costume designer for the Piccolo Teatro productions in the period 1955-1959. At the same time, he also worked in other Italian theatres. After leaving the Piccolo in 1960, he continued his scenography work in some of the most important productions of that period. In 1962, he met Vittorio de Sica, which opened Frigerio's path as a film scenographer. He continued his career by collaborating with famous directors such as Marco Bolognini, Liliana Cavani, Franco Rossi, Renato Castellani, Volker Schlöndorff, Bernardo Bertolucci (Twentieth Century) and Jean-Paul Rappeneau (Cyrano de Bergerac).
Ezio Frigerio, whose career as a set designer was marked by numerous awards and recognitions, created more than two hundred and fifty productions in all the major theaters of the world: from Milan to Paris, from Buenos Aires to Stockholm, from New York to Tokyo, from Düsseldorf to Zurich, from Geneva to Toulouse, from Lyon to Rio de Janeiro. In addition to the Piccolo Teatro, his life was also particularly linked to the Paris Opera, where he signed many of Rudolf Nureyev's ballets, and to the Théâtre National Populaire in Villeurbanne.