ELENA BARBALICH

Elena Barbalich, Venetian, graduated in Literature at Ca' Foscari University with top marks with a thesis on the history of the performance of opera Aida by G. Verdi at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. At the same time she followed an acting course at the Teatro all'Avogaria in Venice and deepened her musical training with the private study of piano and choral singing.

 

She began working in the field of opera as an assistant director, collaborating with Giorgio Marini and Italo Nunziata in the major Italian theaters such as La Fenice in Venice, the Arena in Verona, the Regio in Turin, the Carlo Felice in Genoa, the Comunale in Bologna, the San Carlo in Naples, the Massimo in Palermo.

 

In 1998 she made her debut with La serva padrona by G. B. Pergolesi, performed in Milan at the Castello Sforzesco and interpreted by Tiziana Fabbricini and the Verdi orchestra conducted by Manlio Benzi. 

 

She creates numerous directions in the field of contemporary repertoire such as Phonophonie by M. Kagel (first Italian performance), for which she takes care of the choice of literary texts for the record edition, and Die Rätsel von Mozart by M. Cardi, M. D'Amico, O. Neuwirth, F. Nieder and B. Olivero (first ever performance), performed in February 1999 at the Teatro delle Fondamenta Nuove in Venice for the Malipiero Foundation in collaboration with the La Fenice Theatre. 

 

Again for the Teatro la Fenice, in September 2001, she staged Per voce preparata, an anthology with music by Aperghis, Cage, Casale, Doati, Kagel, Pachini, Schnebel, which inaugurates the reopening of the Malibran Theatre in Venice. In Paris, at the Auditorium de la Cité des Arts, in January 2000, she represents Recitations of G. Aperghis and takes care of the recovery of Phonophonie by M. Kagel. At the Barga Opera Festival  she puts son stage Der tribun by M. Kagel, repeated at the Tourcoing Festival organized by Jean Claude Malgoire, on the occasion of which she also took care of the performance of Die Rätsel von Mozart.

 

In 2005, for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, she directed the first ever performance of the opera Garibaldi en Sicile by Marcello Panni with the participation of Luigi Ontani. 

 

In 2000, as a director, she won a "Stipendium" from the Richard Wagner Stipendienstiftung.

 

In the field of the classical repertoire she created various productions, collaborating almost exclusively with the costume designer Tommaso Lagattolla, professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bari. In 2003 she directed La cavalleria rusticana by P. Mascagni and I  pagliacci by R. Leoncavallo at the Teatro Verdi in Salerno and at the Politeama in Catanzaro (December 2003). For the same theatres, the following year, she staged Tosca, opening the season at the Politeama in Catanzaro. In 2006, she inaugurated the Salerno opera season with the Macbeth by Verdi, a production purchased by the São Carlos Theater in Lisbon and revived in that theater in 2007 and 2015. In September 2008  she rearranges Macbeth in La Coruña, in 2010 at the Teatro Calderón in Valladolid and in 2016 at the Teatre Principal in Palma de Mallorca. In May 2007, she edited the re-edition of Tosca for the Petruzzelli Foundation of Bari under the direction of Daniel Oren, revived in 2009 for the same theater under the direction of Renato Palumbo. In November 2007, at the Teatro Verdi in Sassari, she created the direction of Les Mamelles de Tirésias of Poulenc and  La Damoiselle élue by Debussy (first ever performance). In September 2010, she performed for the Tito Schipa Conservatory of Lecce Il matrimonio inaspettato by G. Paisiello and, in October 2010, at the Petruzzelli Theater in Bari, La Traviata by Verdi. In 2011 she directed the opera Il cappello di paglia di Firenze by Nino Rota in a long tour involving the Sociale theaters of Como, Ponchielli of Cremona, Opera Giocosa of Savona, Grande of Brescia, Fraschini of Pavia and Sociale of Rovigo, revived at the Petruzzelli Theater in 2014 and in 2018 at the San Carlo Theater in Naples. In October 2012, she resumed directing Tosca, inaugurating the seasons of the Theaters of Brescia, Pavia and Cremona. In 2015, she created a new staging of Le nozze di Figaro by Mozart at the Teatro Regio in Turin, broadcast on Rai5, broadcast in 40 French cinemas and repeated in 2018 for the same foundation. Also in 2015 he stages Juditha Triumphans by Vivaldi at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, broadcast on the France2 television network. In 2017, she created the direction of Rigoletto by Verdi, performed in Pavia and on tour in Como, Brescia, Cremona, Bergamo and repeated, in September 2018, at the Opéra de Toulon. In February 2019 she created the staging of Il sogno di Scipione by Mozart for the Teatro La Fenice in collaboration with the students of the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice and in October of the same year she resumed for the seventh time Macbeth at the Fraschini in Pavia and in the theaters of the Circuito Lombardo under the direction of Gianluigi Gelmetti.