Lorenzo Cutùli
Lorenzo Cutùli was born in Ferrara, Italy, and graduated as a set and costume designer with a first-class honor degree from the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna, with additional studies in art history at the University of Ferrara. He has made many important collaborations in the artistic and theatrical field with Claudio Abbado, Jonathan Miller, Hugo de Ana, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Luca Ronconi, Peter Greenaway, Roland Petit, Lindsay Kemp, Emanuele Luzzati, Robert Wilson, Lev Dodin, and many others.
Mr. Cutùli has taught staging and production design at the University of Ferrara, and is now a professor of set design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. As a painter and sculptor, he has taken part in various exhibitions both in Italy and abroad for many important artistic events. Lorenzo made his debut as a theatrical designer in 1990 for the productions of Claudio Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and Giovanni Battista Martini’s Don Quixote for the theaters of Ferrara and Cesena. He has since developed his career as a set, costume and video designer, creating productions of Domenico Ciramosa’s Il matrimonio segreto (set design); Murray Schisgal’s The Tiger (set design); Simon Boccanegra (set and costume design at Teatro Comunale (Ferrara), Teatro Regio (Parma), Teatro Nuovo (Bolzano) and the Teatro San Carlo (Naples); Carmen (set design at the Mègaron Concert Hall of Thessaloniky (Greece); The Fairy Queen (set and video design) at the Arriaga in Bilbao, the Liceo in Salamanca (Spain) and the Teatro Cervantes (Malaga); Manuel de Falla’s El amor brujo (video and lighting design) at the Hemisferìc Pavillion in the City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia (Spain, “Eclectic Festival”), with Symphony Orchestra of Valencia and special guest Spanish singer Carmen Linares.
Mr. Cutùli also designed the video for The Light of Dreams, a tribute to Rome and the Italian Cinema commissioned for the world gala of L’Oréal – Paris at the Aldobrandini’s Villa of Frascati (Rome); Acis and Galatea (set and video design) for the theaters of Pisa, Livorno, Lucca and Chieti; Elizabeth I –The Last Dance (set and video design) for the Lindsay Kemp Company, performed at the Palacio de Festivales of Santander (Spain Theatre’s Festival), which toured around Spain and to Japan, I Lombardi alla prima crociata (set and video design) at the Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires); Semiramide (set design) for the theaters of Pisa, Livorno, Trento, and Rovigo; Antonio Vivaldi’s Andromeda liberata (set and costume design) at the Teatro Amilcare Ponchielli (Cremona); Vivaldi’s Montezuma (set design) with Il Complesso Barocco Orchestra, and at the National Opera of Lisbon, Internationale Maifestspiele Wiesbaden at the Hessisches Staatstheater, Arriaga’s Bilbao Theater, Teatro Comunale of Ferrara, Teatro Municipale of Piacenza, and Teatro Comunale of Modena (Italian tour); Monteverdi’s Orfeo (set and costume design) at the Teatro Amilcare Ponchielli (a celebration of the 400th Anniversary of the opera) with the Venice Baroque Orchestra; Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Paride ed Elena (set and costume design) at the theaters of Pisa, Livorno, Lucca and Royal Opera House of Wallonie (Liège); and for the show Gran Varietà Brachetti (set design) dedicated to the talents of Arturo Brachetti, the best quick change artist in the world for his Italian tour during the 2008–2009 season.
Mr. Cutùli has also designed The Medium and Gianni Schicchi (both sets and costumes) for the theaters of Cremona, Brescia, Como, and Pavia; Emmanuel Chabrier’s Une éducation manquée (set design) and La cambiale di matrimonio (set design) for the Wexford Festival Opera; Beauty and the Beast (costume design) at the 53th Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy; Brachetti and Friends (set design) by and with Arturo Brachetti and other international artists (Italian tour); Nino Rota’s Il cappello di paglia di Firenze (set and costume design) at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, at the 62nd Wexford Festival, and at the Teatro Comunale of Florence; Acis and Galatea (set and video design) with the Akademie für Alte Musik – Berlin for the XXV International Music Festival of Macau, China; Viviani Varietà (set and costume design), an evening of poems, words and music at Raffaele Viviani’s Theater, directed by Maurizio Scaparro, with the participation as a guest star of Massimo Ranieri; Tullio Kezich’s La coscienza di Zeno (set design), based on the novel of Italo Svevo, at the Teatro Carcano (Milan); Richard the Third (set design), directed and interpreted by Italian singer-actor Massimo Ranieri, with the original music by Ennio Morricone, at the Teatro Romano (Verona Shakespeare Festival and Italian summer tour); Don Pasquale (set and costume design) at Le Centre Lyrique – Maison de la Culture of Clermont-Ferrand (Auvergne), in coproduction with the theaters of Avignon, Limoges, Massy, Reims, Rouen, Jesi, Saint-Etienne, Vichy, Bergamo, Como, Cremona, Jesi, and Pavia; Amerika (costume design) at Napoli Teatro Festival 2014 and the Teatro Eliseo di Roma; Carmen (costume design) in Sassari (Italy); Waiting for Godot (costume design) at Milan’s Teatro Carcano; Carlo Goldoni’s La bottega del caffè (set and costume design) at the National Theater of Tuscany – Teatro della Pergola (Florence) with the collaboration of Napoli Teatro Festival (Naples) and Piccolo Teatro di Milano as part of EXPO 2015; and Giovanni Paisiello’s Fedra (set and costume design) at the Teatro Massimo Bellini (Catania).
He also made sets for installations for important exhibitions in Italy such as Le memorie de Adriano, based on the novel by Marguerite Yourcenar, at Adriano’s Temple in Rome in collaboration with the Centro di Documentazione Permanente of Marguerite Yourcenar and the Marguerite Yourcenar Foundation; The Adventures of Pinocchio, with the special collaboration and inspiration of Roberto Benigni’s film at the Cinema’s House in Terni, Italy. For the Festival of the Cinema of Siena, Mr. Cutùli created an artistic installation and performance entitled Salome and Salomè – 100 Fragments for a Myth at the Rinnovati’s Theatre. As a painter and set designer, he has been included in an exhibition book entitled Figure del ‘900/Oltre l’Accademia, made for the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Bologna. His artistic and biographical profiles are included in the Annuaire de l’Art International (Patrick Sermadiras editeur, Paris) and Kunsthistoriches Institut of Florence. He also collaborated as a technical collaborator with a number of production companies: Le Ballet du Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, Ballet Nacional de Cuba/Alicia Alonso, Maly Drama Theatre of Saint Petersburg, Adventure in Motion Picture Company (London), and for Matthew Bourne’s production of Swan Lake (Italian tour). In December 2014, during a gala night ceremony at the Amphitheatre Katara in Doha in the Emirate of Qatar, he was awarded with the prestigious International Academy of Lyric Opera Award as the best set designer.
