Luca Ronconi, the greatest Italian director, one of the most famous names in contemporary European theater, the master of generations of actors, the architect of the most beautiful shows seen in these years, from the Orlando Furioso of '69 to the last days of 'humanity, from Lolita to the last beautiful, always applauded Lehman Trilogy on stage in these days at the Piccolo Teatro. Luca Ronconi one of the greatest directors of theatrical direction: that complex art that creates shows, starting from the ability to educate the actors, to know how to offer the public the best of dramaturgy. Ronconi exercised this art with the supreme ability to innovate and experiment. The life of Ronconi can be told by listing the hundred and more shows, the many actors encountered on stage, the students who drank their lessons at the Academy of Art Dramatic of Rome, where he himself had studied years before and also the ranks of fans of his inventive art, which boasted the title of "ronconiani".


L'Orlando Furioso
At first and for a few years Ronconi was an actor. But then at 30, almost by chance, he started working as a director in 1963, with the company of Corrado Pani and Gianmaria Volonté, and in the following years he became an exponent of the theatrical avant-garde, up to fame in 1969 with "Orlando furioso" by Ariosto, in the version of Edoardo Sanguineti with set design by Uberto Bertacca. Born as an experimental fact in the church of San Nicolò at the Spoleto Festival, the show will give him national fame and abroad. In 1974 he directed a film version of the same drama, where actors such as Massimo Foschi and Mariangela Melato stand out among the performers. The television version aired for five episodes in 1975 on Sunday in the early evening: an almost unique episode in which the theater (moreover avant-garde) occupied the television. From the seventies onwards he collaborated with several theatrical institutions, including the Venice Biennale, of which he is the director of the Theater Section from 1975 to 1977. In the following two years, (1977 - 1979), he founded and directed the Prato Theater Design Laboratory. . These are the years of memorable performances, including "Orestea" by Eschilo (1972), "Utopia" by Aristophanes (1976), Baccanti by "Euripide" (1977), "La torre" by von Hofmannsthal (1978). Among the shows to be reported in the eighties, '' Ignorabimus '' by Holz (1986), "Tre sorelle" by Cechov (1989).

The invention of spaces
Beyond the different dramaturgical choices, the production opportunities, the search for actors to be formed and cast, the whole of these shows is also distinguished by research or rather the invention of unusual theatrical spaces: from sheet metal horses the audience of the furious Orlando, to the raft that was the stage on Lake Constance, to the labyrinth built specifically for "XX" in Paris.



The last days of humanity
He later directed the Teatro Stabile di Torino (from 1989 to 1994), where he also produced an impressive exhibition (over sixty actors) of "The last days of humanity" by Karl Kraus, at Lingotto (1991). In 1994 he directed in Salzburg "The Giants of the mountain" of Pirandello.

The Theater of Rome
He then became artistic director of the Teatro di Roma (from 1994 to 1998), where in 1996 he directed Gadda's "Quer pasticciaccio ugutto de via Merulana" and the following year he staged one of the few unseen plays of his career, the "Davila Roa" "by Alessandro Baricco, who is even whistled by the public and" The Brothers Karamazov "by Dostoevskij 1998.  The Brothers Karamazov "by Dostoevskij 1998. He then became artistic director of the Teatro di Roma (from 1994 to 1998), where in 1996 he directed Gadda's "Quer pasticciaccio ugutto de via Merulana".



Il Piccolo Teatro
In 1999 he moved to the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, where he accompanied the director Sergio Escobar in the role of artistic director. Here he debuts with two pièces: "Life is a dream" by Pedro Calderon de la Barca and "The dream" by August Strindberg.Al Piccolo, in 2002 he directed an original show, "Infinities", based on a scientific text by the cosmologist John David Barrow.

The lyric
The chapter of the lyrical dirges is also rich and charismatic, for which he has signed the productions especially of Italian classics (Monteverdi, Bellini, Rossini). In addition to various works for La Scala, Ronconi has participated several times at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro - Verdi and Puccini) and staged contemporary foreigners (for example "The case Makropulos" by Janacek and "Turn of the Screw" by Britten) In 2006 he realizes five shows connected to each other for the XX Olympic Winter Games in Turin. In 2007 he is the project "Odyssey double return", then he signed the lines of La compagnia degli uomini, La modestia, Six characters in search of author, Ponrography, Dance macabre, represented at the Spoleto festival.