Within only a short space of time Damiano Michieletto has come to international prominence as one of the most interesting representatives of the younger generation of Italian directors. He was born in Venice and studied opera and theatre production at the Paolo Grassi School of Dramatic Art in Milan, while also taking a degree in modern literature at the University of Venice. His acclaimed production of Weinberger’s Švanda the Bagpiper at the 2003 Wexford Festival won an Irish Times / ESB Theatre Award. He then went on to direct L’italiana in Algeri in Vicenza, La gazza ladra (Premio Abbiati, 2008), La scala di seta and Sigismondo at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Lucia di Lammermoor, Il corsaro, Luisa Miller and Poliuto in Zurich, Roméo et Juliette and the Mozart–Da Ponte trilogy at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Naples, Madama Butterfly in Turin, L’elisir d’amore in Valencia, Martinů’s The Greek Passion in Palermo, Così fan tutte at Tokyo’s New National Theatre and Il barbiere di Siviglia in Geneva.
Damiano Michieletto made his Salzburg Festival debut with La bohème in 2012 and since then has returned for Falstaff (2013) and La Cenerentola (2014). His other work since 2012 has included Il trittico, Idomeneo, Rossini’s Otello and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Theater an der Wien, Un ballo in maschera at La Scala, The Rake’s Progress in Leipzig, Guillaume Tell and Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci (Olivier Award, 2016) at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Il viaggio a Reims and Rigoletto in Amsterdam, Die Zauberflöte, Filippo Perocco’s Aquagranda (Premio Abbiati, 2017) and Die lustige Witwe in Venice, Cendrillon at the Komische Oper in Berlin, La donna del lago at the Rossini Opera Festival, Samson et Dalila and Don Pasquale in Paris and La Damnation de Faust in Rome (Premio Abbiati, 2018). In 2018/19 he returned to La Fenice for Macbeth and made his Frankfurt Opera debut with Der ferne Klang.
Revivals of his productions have taken him to Milan, Rome, Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Copenhagen, Brussels, Moscow, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Verona, Graz, Liège, Shanghai and Muscat.
Damiano Michieletto has also been acclaimed for his work in the spoken theatre, most notably Goldoni’s The Fan and Gogol’s The Government Inspector in Padua and Valle-Inclán’s Divine Words and The Threepenny Opera at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan.
