Giovanna Buzzi

Biography

Began her involvement in costume desing at the Theatre Laboratory in Prato directed by Luca Ronconi; afterwards moved to Rome and worked at Umberto Tirelli’s theatre tailor shop, then became the assistant of Pier Luigi Pizzi. Her first production with Ronconi was La serva amorosa (A Servant Girl in Love) by Goldoni in 1986.

Their collaboration went on to iclude music theatre productions with set designs by Gae Aulenti: The Tale of Tsar Saltan by Rimsky-Korsakov (1988, Teatro alla Scala) and Elektra by Richard Strauss (1994, Teatro alla Scala); she created costumes for the productions of Ricciardo e Zoraide (1990), Il barbiere di Siviglia (2005) and Armida (2014) at Rossini Opera Festival, where she also collaborates with Graham Vick on his Móise et Pharaon.

Collaborates with Federico Tiezzi on drama production, the lates three include The Birds by Aristophanes (2005), The Mountain Giants by Pirandello (2007), A Passage to India by Santha Rama Rau (2008) and Casanova’s Homecoming by Arthur Schnitzler (2014). Created costumes for Tiezzi’s opera productions, such as Madama Butterfly, Il trovatore, I cavalieri di Ekebù by Zandonai, Iris, Carmen, Andrea Chénier, Norma, Simon Boccanegra and The Merry Widow.

In 1994 designed costumes for Costa Gavras’s prpduction of Il mondo della luna by Haydn at the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples. In 2005 designed costumes for Federico Tiezzi’s Die Walküre with sets designed by Giulio Paolini. The production of Parsifal by this same creative team opened the season 2006-07 at the Teatro di San Carlo. In February 2006 creates theatre and circus-style costumes for the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Turin directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca, and collaborates with the same director on Donka at the International Chekhov Festival in Moscow, 2010.

In 2014 resumes her collaboration with Daniele Finzi Pasca and designs costumes for the closing ceremony of the Olympics and the opening ceremony of the Paralympics in Sochi. Received the Abbiati prize for the best opera costumes of the year with Ricciardo e Zoraide (1990) and Die Walküre (2005).

In 2015 she was engaged for Federico Tiezzi’s Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides at the 51th Cycle of Classical Performances at the Greek theatre of Syracuse, and for Daniele Finzi Pasca’s Carmen at the Teatro di San Carlo. In 2016 designed costumes for the show LUZIA by Cirque du Soleil in Montreal.