Alessio Pizzech

BIOGRAPHY

Alessio Pizzech is among Italy’s most prolific and imaginative stage directors, with more than 150 productions to his credit across opera and theatre. Over the years he has established close collaborations with some of the most prestigious opera houses and festivals, including Teatro Regio di Torino, Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, and the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, where he staged the modern revival of Pietro Antonio Cesti’s Le nozze in sogno — one of the festival’s most acclaimed rediscoveries.

His artistic signature blends psychological precision, musical intelligence, and a strong sense of visual dramaturgy, capable of transforming both classical and contemporary works into emotionally vivid theatrical experiences.

Recent and upcoming highlights include Verdi’s Otello, which Pizzech will stage for the first time in 2026 at the Teatro Goldoni di Livorno and the Teatro del Giglio di Lucca, Rigoletto with Teatro Politeama di Lecce in November 2025, as well as several recent projects that confirm his creative versatility.

In 2025, he directed Nanof by Antonio Agostini at the Teatro Sperimentale di Spoleto and began his collaboration with the Norma Fantini Opera Contest, staging Puccini’s La bohème and curating the artistic training of young singers within the newly founded Fantini Project.

In 2024, he premiered Thomas Cornelius Desi’s Butterfly Equation, produced by the Accademia Chigiana di Siena, and staged a new Così fan tutte at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb in co-production with the Ljubljana Opera, where the production was later revived. The same season included a revival of Un sogno a Istanbul, also in Zagreb.

In 2023, he opened the Festival Como Città della Musica with a new production of Aida, launching the ninth edition of 200.Com, the participatory opera project of the Teatro Sociale di Como. That year, he also presented Turandot at the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto (followed by an Umbrian tour) and a new Traviata in Lecce.

Among his earlier operatic successes are Zanetto by Mascagni (Teatro Filarmonico di Verona, 2021), Maria de Buenos Aires (Teatro Goldoni di Livorno, 2021), Il re pastore (Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, 2019), Haydn’s Armida and L’anima del filosofo (Haydn Festival Eisenstadt, 2018–2019), Monteverdi’s Orfeo (Teatro Regio di Torino, 2018, conducted by Antonio Florio), and Donizetti’s La fille du régiment (Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, 2021). His Rigoletto for Teatro Comunale di Bologna (2016, revived for the Japan tour 2019) and Turandot and Traviata for the Japan Opera Festival have also been widely praised.

Over the years, Pizzech has collaborated with an extensive network of Italian and international theatres, including the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Fondazione Donizetti di Bergamo, Fondazione Teatro Verdi di Trieste, Teatro Alighieri di Ravenna, Teatro Comunale di Modena and Ferrara, Teatro Sociale di Como, Teatro Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto, and festivals in Norway, Lebanon, and Japan.

His opera productions reveal a distinctive aesthetic — precise in gesture, visually poetic, and rich in emotional realism — in which musical structure and human experience converge.

Alongside his operatic work, Alessio Pizzech continues to direct spoken-theatre productions, exploring contemporary dramaturgy and literary adaptation. Notable recent examples include Un sogno a Istanbul (based on Paolo Rumiz’s La cotogna di Istanbul, Campania Teatro Festival 2023), Le ferite del vento by Juan Carlos Rubio (Italian premiere and 2022–2023 national tour), and L’uomo dal fiore in bocca, revisited by Roberto Cavosi after Pirandello, which toured throughout Italy in 2023.

Deeply committed to education and artistic mentoring, Pizzech teaches acting and stage direction at the National Academy of Ancient Drama in Syracuse and the Conservatory of Verona, and regularly holds masterclasses for Teatro Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto, AsLiCo, and conservatories in Beirut, Stavanger, and Chișinău. His pedagogical work reflects the same curiosity, discipline, and expressive awareness that characterize his theatre.

In 2023, he was awarded the Kaleidos Patti Prize “for the brilliance with which he dares to stage human emotions, transforming them into art.”