Forty-year old Spanish director Àlex Rigola has been named Director of the Theatre Sector of the Biennale di Venezia for the two-year period 2010-2011. The decision was made by the Board of Directors gathered today and chaired by Paolo Baratta, which appointed Rigola to develop a two-year project that includes workshops, laboratories and seminars that reflect a continuity with the festival program.

The laboratory experience, based on research and performance, which will take place in autumn and be open to the public, will be integrated into the creation of a festival – scheduled for the year 2011 – that offers an overview of the contemporary scene with its variety of models and trends, associating the most cutting-edge experiments with the finest internationally recognized theatre, and bringing the vitality of the Italian scene face to face with the forms and languages of other countries.

 

An author of incisive rewritten versions of the great classics which have brought him fame beyond the borders of Spain and even in Italy, such as the Shakespearian trilogy (Julius Caesar, Titus Andronicus, Richard III), he has worked extensively with modern and contemporary drama – from Alfred Jarry and Eugene O’Neill to David Mamet, Tom Stoppard, Heiner Müller, Bernard-Marie Koltès – but has also staged the works of famous writers – such as The Trial by Franz Kafka, and Roberto Bolaño’s unfinished novel, 2666. He also directed an opera, The Flying Dutchman by Richard Wagner, for the Teatro Liceu. Director of the Teatro Lliure in Barcelona since 2003, Alex Rigola has achieved widespread recognition and won many critics’ awards for his work with this theatre’s repertory company, one of the most innovative on the Spanish scene.

 

“After four years of direction by a personality such as Maestro Maurizio Scaparro – commented President Paolo Baratta­– we thought we would allow two years for the direction by a young, yet established, European director, for a festival-laboratory that unites research and experimentation with the finest classical and contemporary theatre, both Italian and international. The two-year timeframe we are working with – as with Dance – expands the horizons of the idea of festival, which we base on long-term planning, to cultivate projects and creativity with the certainty of continuity and perspective. Young director Àlex Rigola has been entrusted with the task of creating a festival that can compose a personal journey between the theatre of today’s recognized Masters, and the search for new expressive forms”.

 

“I would like to thank the Biennale for the opportunity it has given me – stated Àlex Rigola. It is an honour to work for a Sector that has been directed by some of the most important international directors. I will work to bring the Theatre Biennale to the same level of splendour as the city of Venice. And I hope that this Sector may become an international benchmark for contemporary theatre arts.”