Giorgio Battistelli

• Name — Giorgio Battistelli • Birthplace — Albano Laziale, Italy • Education — Conservatory of L'Aquila • Occupation — * Composer • Festival director • Organizations — * Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte di Montepulciano • Venice Biennale Giorgio Battistelli is an Italian composer of contemporary classical music.

Giorgio Battistelli was born in Albano Laziale, Italy. He studied at the conservatory in L'Aquila, and is a former student of Stockhausen and Kagel.

By 2009, Battistelli had written nearly 20 operas, on subjects ranging from Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopaedia to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. From 1985 to 1986 he was host of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst in Berlin. In 1994 he co-founded an improvisation group called Edgard Varèse, and an instrumental ensemble named Beat '72. In October 2009, his opera Miracle in Brisbane was performed for the Brisbane Festival in Brisbane, Australia, directed by Rhoda Roberts and starring an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cast, including Aaron Fa'aoso, Deborah Mailman, Djakapurra Munyarrayan, and Casey Donovan. In November 2009 he was artistic director of the Jerwood Opera Writing Programme hosted by Aldeburgh Music in England. His opera CO 2, based on Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, premiered at La Scala opera house in Milan in 2015. Battistelli's opera Wake was premiered by the Birmingham Opera Company in March 2018 and is inspired by the story of Lazarus being brought back from the dead. He was artistic director of the Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte di Montepulciano, the Orchestra Regionale Toscana. He has been director of the music section of the Venice Biennale. His music is published by Ricordi and recordings available on Stradivarius.

• Title — Format — Libretto and source — Premiere • Experimentum Mundi — Opera di musica immaginistica, 60' — the composer, after the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D'Alembert — May 1981; Teatro Olimpico, Rome • Linzer Stahloper — Sep 1982; Hauptplatz, Linz • Jules Verne — Fantasia da camera, 60' — Sep 1987; Strasbourg • Aphrodite — Monodramma di costumi antichi, 50' — after the novel Aphrodite: mœurs antiques by Pierre Louÿs — Jul 1988; Villa Massimo, Rome • Combattimento di Ettore e Achille — Représentation de corps et de mémoire, 60' — the composer, after texts of Homer, Tirso de Molina, Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare, Du Bellay, Racine, Stazio, Quintus, Monti, Leopardi, Foscolo, Chiabrera, Ariosto, Catullo, Ronsard, Valéry — Sep 1989; Festival Musica, Strasbourg • Keplers Traum — Kammeroper, 60' — the composer, loosely after Kepler — Sep 1990; Brucknerhaus, Linz • Teorema — Parabola in musica in 2 atti (16 scene), 70' — the composer, loosely after the film by Pier Paolo Pasolini — Mar 1992; Teatro Comunale, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino • Frau Frankenstein — Monodramma del Prometeo moderno, 35' — the composer, after Mary Shelley — Mar 1993; Berliner Festspiele • Prova d’Orchestra — Teatro di musica — Nov 1995; Strasbourg • CenciThe Cenci — Music theatre — the composer and Nick Ward, after the setting by Antonin Artaud of the verse drama by Shelley — Jul 1997; Almeida Opera Festival, London • EntdeckungDie Entdeckung der Langsamkeit — Musiktheater in 5 scenes, 70' — Michael Klügl, after the novel by Sten Nadolny — Oct 1997; Theater Bremen • Impressions d'Afrique — Music theatre — Lavaudant and Loayza, after texts by Roussel, Blake, Dickens, Morgenstern, Rabelais, Saba, Tasso — May 2000; Teatro Goldoni/ Maggio Musicale Fiorentino • Auf den Marmorklippen — Musikalische visionen, 100' — Giorgio van Straten and the composer, after the novel by Ernst Jünger — Mar 2002; Nationaltheater Mannheim • EmbalmerThe Embalmer — Monodramma giocoso da camera, 70' — Renzo Rosso — Jul 2002; Almeida Opera Festival, London • HerbstDer Herbst des Patriarchen — Opera in 6 scenes, 110' — Gotthart Kuppel, after El otoño del patriarca by Gabriel García Márquez — Jun 2004; Theater Bremen • Richard III — Dramma musicale in 2 acts, 150' — Ian Burton, after the play by Shakespeare — Jan 2005; Flemish Opera, Antwerp • Miracolo a Milano — Music theatre, 90' — the composer, loosely after the novel Totò il buono by Cesare Zavattini and its film adaption Miracolo a Milano by Vittorio De Sica — Nov 2007; Teatro Valli, Reggio Emilia • FashionThe Fashion — Opera Mondana in 12 scenes, 90' — Bob Goody — Jan 2008; Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf • Divorzio all'Italiana — Azione musicale in 23 tavole per il crepuscolo della famiglia, 90' — the composer, loosely after the film by Pietro Germi — Sep 2008; Opéra national de Lorraine, Nancy, France • Miracle in Brisbane — October 2009; Brisbane Festival, Australia • ' — Opera, 90' — Ian Burton, Sung in English with electronic libretto in Italian, English — May 2015; La Scala, Milan • Il Medico dei Pazzi — Opera — 2016; Opéra national de Lorraine, Nancy • Lot — Opera — 2017; Staatsoper Hannover • Wake — Opera — Sarah Woods — March 2018; Birmingham Opera Company