Italian opera director, set designer, and costume designer
Pier Luigi Pizzi (born 15 June 1930) is an Italian
opera
director,
set and
costume designer.
Biography
Pizzi was born in
Milan, Italy, and earned a degree in architecture at the
Politecnico of Milan. Against the will of his skeptical father, he started working in the theater in 1951 with
Giorgio Strehler, and then at the
Teatro Tommaseo in
Genoa, which he soon brought together with
Giorgio De Lullo and his theater troupe Compagnia dei Giovani. Later he collaborated for many years as a set and costume designer with the director
Luca Ronconi on both plays and operas. Pizzi debuted as an operatic director in 1977 with
Don Giovanni in
Turin. More opera productions followed, with Pizzi sketching sets and costumes as well.
Pizzi has worked in major houses including
La Scala, the
Burgtheater in
Vienna, the
Vienna State Opera, the
Paris Opéra, the
Royal Opera House at
Covent Garden, the
Bavarian State Opera in
Munich, and the
Arena di Verona, as well as the opera houses in
Florence,
Naples,
Palermo,
Parma, and the
Teatro la Fenice in
Venice. He has created numerous productions for the
Rossini Opera Festival in
Pesaro, where he has had a working relationship for several decades.
In 1990 Pizzi opened the new
Opéra Bastille in Paris with its production of
Les Troyens. In December 2004, he created sets and costumes for
Antonio Salieri's
L'Europa riconosciuta for the reopening of the renovated La Scala, where he collaborated again after an approximately twenty-year break with director Luca Ronconi.
In October 2005 Pizzi was appointed artistic director of the
Sferisterio Opera Festival in
Macerata, where he has already worked as a director.
Works
(Unless otherwise noted, Pizzi is responsible for the direction, sets, and costumes.)
-
Maria Stuarda (1967, De Lullo directing,
Francesco Molinari-Pradelli conducting)
-
Carmen (1970, Ronconi directing, Arena di Verona)
-
The Bacchae (by
Euripides; 1973, Ronconi directing, Burgtheater)
-
Die Walküre (1974, Ronconi directing,
Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting, La Scala)
-
Aida (1974, De Lullo directing,
Claudio Abbado conducting, La Scala)
-
La forza del destino (1974,
Luigi Squarzina directing,
Riccardo Muti conducting, Vienna State Opera 1974)
-
Così fan tutte (1975,
Giuseppe Patroni Griffi directing,
Karl Böhm conducting, La Scala)
- Don Giovanni (1977, Turin)
-
Les martyrs (1978,
Alberto Fassini directing,
Gianluigi Gelmetti conducting, Venice)
-
Parisina (by
Pietro Mascagni; 1978,
Gianandrea Gavazzeni conducting, Rome)
-
Orlando Furioso (by
Antonio Vivaldi; 1978,
Claudio Scimone conducting, Verona; plus
San Francisco Opera, 1989)
-
Fist (1980, Bavarian State Opera)
-
Tancredi (1982, Gelmetti directing, Pesaro)
-
Mosè in Egitto (1983,
Claudio Scimone directing, Pesaro; plus Pesaro 1985 and Rome 1988)
-
Hippolyte et Aricie (1983,
John Eliot Gardiner conducting,
Aix-en-Provence; plus Paris 1985,
William Christie conducting)
-
L'Orfeo (1984, Florence)
-
Alceste (1984, Geneva; plus Paris 1985)
-
I Capuleti e i Montecchi (1984, Muti conducting, Covent Garden)
-
Rinaldo (1985,
Charles Farncombe and
Charles Mackerras conducting, Reggio Emilia and Paris,
Théâtre du Châtelet; production often revived all around Europe and in Seoul)
- Nel Giorno di Santa Cecilia,
festa teatrale by Pier Luigi Pizzi, music by
Henry Purcell
[1] (1986, Charles Farncombe conducting, Reggio Emilia)
-
Bianca e Falliero (1986,
Donato Renzetti conducting, Pesaro)
-
Alceste (1987, Muti conducting, with
Rosalind Plowright, La Scala, Milan)
-
Otello (1988,
John Pritchard directing, Presaro; plus
Chicago 1992)
-
Don Carlo (1989, Abbado conducting, Vienna State Opera)
- Les Troyens (1990,
Myung-whun Chung conducting, Paris)
-
Les Danaïdes (by Salieri; 1990,
Claudio Scimone conducting,
Ravenna)
-
Castor et pollux (1991, Christie conducting, Aix-en-Provence)
-
La nascita di Orfeo by
Lorenzo Ferrero, 1996,
Teatro Filarmonico in Verona
- Aida (1999, Arena di Verona)
- L'Europa riconosciuta (2004, Ronconi directing, Muti conducting, La Scala reopening)
-
Euryanthe (2004,
Gérard Korsten conducting, Teatro lirico di Cagliari)
-
La Gioconda (by
Amilcare Ponchielli; 2005, Arena di Verona)
-
A Midsummer Night's Dream (2006,
Ion Marin conducting,
Madrid)
-
L'Orfeo (2008,
William Christie conducting
Les Arts Florissants, Madrid)
Honors
Pizzi is a :
Books
- Maria Ida Biggi (Hrsg.): Pier Luigi Pizzi alla Fenice. Marsilio 2005. 248 pages, 334 illustrations (color, black and white). (
ISBN
88-317-8807-8)
References
External links
|
---|
International | |
---|
National | |
---|
Academics | |
---|
Artists | |
---|
People | |
---|
Other | |
---|