Romeo Castellucci

Romeo Castellucci was born in 1960 in Cesena (Italy) and studied painting and scenography at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna. In 1981 he founded the theatre collective Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio together with Claudia Castellucci and Chiara Guidi. He has created numerous productions for which he has been the author, director, set and costume designer and lighting designer.

Castellucci is well known as a theatre artist whose works aim for a holistic perception of the arts in their totality, and he has written several theoretical essays on direction based on his own experiences in the theatre. The dramatic structure of his productions does not follow the primacy of literature, but is rooted rather in the understanding of theatre as a complex and visually powerful plastic art.

Since 2011 Castellucci has also created individual projects independently of the Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio. He works regularly at the most prestigious theatres and opera houses, and at international festivals. His recent productions with the Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio include Sul concetto di volto nel figlio di Dio (2011), The Four Seasons Restaurant (2012), Hyperion. Briefe eines Terroristen after Hölderlin (2013), Le Sacre du printemps (2014) and Democracy in America (2017). Other productions include Parsifal at La Monnaie in Brussels (2011), Orfeo ed Euridice at the Vienna Festwochen (2014), Moses und Aron at the Paris Opéra (2015, with a revival at the Teatro Real in Madrid, 2016), Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher at the Opéra de Lyon (2017), Tannhäuser at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich (2017), Henze’s Das Floß der Medusa at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam (2018), Die Zauberflöte at La Monnaie (2018, in a co-production with the Opéra de Lille), Alessandro Scarlatti’s Il primo omicidio at the Paris Opéra (2019, in a co-production with the Berlin State Opera), A Paixão (Bach’s St Matthew Passion) at the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon (2019), Mozart’s Requiem at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (2019), Pavane für Prometheus at the Beethovenfest in Bonn (2021), Résurrection (Mahler’s Second Symphony) at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (2022, with a revival at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, 2023), Daphne at the Berlin State Opera (2023) and Das Rheingold (2023) and Die Walküre (2024) at La Monnaie.

In 2018 he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival with Salome, returning in 2021 for Don Giovanni and in 2022 for Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, performed in a double-bill with Orff’s De temporum fine comoedia.

In 2005 Castellucci directed the theatre section of the Venice Biennale, and in 2009 he was ‘Artiste associé’ for the 62nd edition of the Festival d’Avignon.

Castellucci has received numerous awards and honours, among them the Premio Europa Nuove Realtà Teatrali (1996), the rank of Chevalier in the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale (2014), an honorary doctorate in music and theatre from the University of Bologna (2014) and the Golden Cross of Merit from the Federal State of Vienna (2022).

Castellucci is the Grand Invité of the Milan Triennale for the years 2021—24.