Giulia Rossena

lorenzopuntoponte [at] gmail.com

I was born in Rome, raised between Palermo and Milan.

I graduated in Classics literature at the Catholic University of Milan thinking that I would be a literature professor. Then I started a course of theater and I decided to look for a different relationship with words. Therefore I went to study Theater Direction at the Paolo Grassi Civic School in Milan. Among the most precious meetings for my artistic and professional growth I count Mariano Furlani, Maurizio Schmidt, Carmelo Rifici, Marco Maccieri, Renata Molinari, Davide Carnevali, Giuliana Musso, and Claudio Autelli. From each of them I have stolen and I continue to steal. After my studies I started working as an assistant director at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and at the Teatro Franco Parenti with Andrée Ruth Shammah. These were the years of my apprenticeship, in which I began to understand how a theater stage is made and who its inhabitants are.

I’ve directed prose theater and opera shows. Sometimes I feel the need to write the stories I tell myself, sometimes I work with the words of Others.

In 2018, together with Maddalena Massafra, Clio Sciro Saccà, Marco Sinopoli, we won the Macerata Opera Festival 4.0 competition for the writing and composition of a contemporary opera. In 2022, I received the 3rd prize of the EOP – European Opera Prize for Directors, together with Alice Benazzi and Giulia Rossena. In 2023, we won the 13th edition of the EOP – European Opera Award for Directors.

From that shame, impotence and pain, something was born that I believe was the desire to become a poet, that is, to be able to express what it means to feel regret for someone, to have been loved, to be alone.
Stig Dagerman

Alice Benazzi

Giulia Rossena

Emanuele Agliati

Rosabel Huguet Dueñas

Praxis

Lara Ilaria Braconi

Arbaro

Gli Asini

Two widows Idomeneo, re di Creta Once we won't be great Good for Nothing You Are Agatha Confabulazioni

Two widows

  • by Bedřich Smetana

  • In a new orchestration by Christopher Willis
  • English translation by David Pountney and Leonard Hancock
  • Dialogues by Graham Vick, Lorenzo Ponte
  • New production by Birmingham Opera Company, European Award for Opera Direction from Camerata Nuova and Opera Europa, Smetanova Litomyšl

  • Conductor Lada Valešová 
  • Stage director Lorenzo Ponte
  • Set design Alice Benazzi 
  • Costumes Giulia Rossena 
  • Lighting Emanuele Agliati 
  • Choreography Livia Bartolucci

  • Karolina Jeni Bern
  • Anežka Clarissa Meek
  • Ladislav Ronald Samm
  • Mumlal Andrew Slater
  • Škampa Quartet | piano Filip Martinka
  • With the volunteering actors and actresses of Litomyšl coordinated by Filip Janouch

  • Photo poster: Claire Brand
  • Photos: Ivan Krejza and František Renza

  • Set me as a seal upon your heart,
  • as a seal upon your arm;
  • for love is strong as death,
  • passion fierce as the grave.
  • Song of Songs

Winner of the 13th European Opera-directing Prize by Camerata Nova, this chamber version of Two Widows makes its debut at Smetanova Litomyšl Festival. An international production that will start from Bedřich's birthtown and then travel throughout Europe.

In the spirit of music without borders, the Italian creative team led by Lorenzo Ponte is partnered by the Czech/British Music Director Lada Valešová, the British cast, top Škampa String Quartet and Czech pianist Filip Martinka. They will be joined by a group of senior volunteers from Litomyšl. The production is by the Birmingham Opera Company reknown for its innovative productions and ethos.

In an era marked by resignation in the present and distrust in the future, Smetana's Two Widows offers us the opportunity to practice hope and imagination. Beneath a plot that may seem frivolous flows a deep love of life. There is a constant confrontation between past and present, between what we were and what we may become. When is it too late to love? When is it no longer worth desiring? Who sets the limit? These questions, prompted by the music and the words of the opera, inspired the creative team to stage Two Widows together with an elderly cast of singers and volunteers. The taboo of a widow's marriage becomes the taboo of a woman who fears to appear ridiculous and inadequate if she allows herself to fall in love again at her age.

Karolina's estate becomes a retirement home: Second Spring Home. In a place and time where it is common to sink into loneliness and apathy, Smetana's music is has powerful means to awaken energies and to get in touch with otherwise unreachable areas of the mind. Singers together with volunteers will play funny and tender characters who strive to love themselves and others rather than sink into isolation and accepting life's changes.

In the end, Two Widows reminds us that to live as well as to love, we must learn to let go.

June 2024

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