Giorgio Battistelli is the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Music “for his work in experimental musical theatre and his intense operatic production, staged by the most important European institutions”. The decision was made by the Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia, accepting the recommendation by Lucia Ronchetti, Director of the Music Department, who has titled the 66th International Festival of Contemporary Music, to be held in Venice from September 14th to 25th 2022, Out of Stage, dedicated to new forms of experimental musical theatre.
“Giorgio Battistelli’s long and celebrated career began in the 1960s with projects for experimental theatre that have become emblematic and foundational for musical research within the context of sound theatricalisation and the theatricality of the performing gesture. Such as Experimentum Mundi, composed in 1981, a work of imaginative music for one actor, eight natural voices of women, sixteen tradesmen and a percussionist, which to this day has been performed 400 times in Europe, Asia, Oceania and North America and is considered a cornerstone of instrumental musical theatre; Jules Verne composed in 1987, a chamber fantasy in the form of a performance for a trio of percussions, three voices, trumpet and piano, and Orazi e Curiazi composed in 1996 for two percussionists” (from the motivation for the award).
A new version of Jules Verne, with the author Giorgio Battistelli for the first time in a new role as director, performed by Ars Ludi, will inaugurate the 66th International Festival of Contemporary Music of La Biennale di Venezia on September 14th 2022, on the stage of the Teatro La Fenice. Ars Ludi will furthermore be involved in various concerts, in addition to participating in the activities of the Biennale College Musica. A new version of the cult opera by Giorgio Battistelli, the great dramatic and musical tapestry Experimentum Mundi, will be the closing performance of the Festival, on September 25th 2022, at the Teatro alle Tese.
The awards ceremony for the Golden Lion to Giorgio Battistelli will be held in the Sala delle Colonne at Ca’ Giustinian, the Biennale headquarters, on September 15th 2022; it will be followed by a conversation between German musicologist Helga De La Motte and the composer.
News from the composer's catalogue
Tragedia in musica
Libretto by Ian Burton
from William Shakespeare
Commissioned by Teatro dell’Opera di Roma
WP: 20.11.2021 | Roma, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma
Daniele Gatti conductor, Robert Carsen director
Interviews from the world premiere of Julius Caesar
Teatro di musica da Goldoni
Libretto by Giorgio Battistelli and Damiano Michieletto
Commissioned by Fondazione Teatro La Fenice
WP: 22.02.2022 | Venezia, Teatro La Fenice
Enrico Calasso conductor, Damiano Michieletto director
Score of Le baruffe
Il teorema di Pasolini
Commissioned by Deutsche Oper Berlin
WP: 2023 | Berlin, Deutsche Oper
photo: Giorgio Battistelli / © Teatro dell'Opera di Roma