Lucia
Ronchetti

Giorgio Battistelli is one of the most recognised contemporary music composers for his experimental music theatre and his intense operatic production, which has been performed by the most important European institutions.
His long and celebrated career began in the 1970s with experimental music theatre projects that have become emblematic of musical research in the field of the theatricalisation of sound and the theatricality of performing gestures. His operatic productions includes more than 100 projects taken up in countless productions by different opera houses, and include two important new creations in the current season: Julius Caesar directed by Robert Carsen on 20 November 2021at the Opera di Roma and Le Baruffe directed by Damiano Michieletto on 22 February 2022 at the Teatro La Fenice.
The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement is specially awarded for his production of instrumental theatre, a form of musical theatre in which Giorgio Battistelli's works are emblematic and foundational.
Among his most recognised and performed works are Experimentum Mundi (1981) composed for one actor, fivefemale voices, sixteen craftsmen and a percussionist; Jules Verne (1987) a chamber fantasy in the form of a performance for a percussion trio, three voices, trumpet and piano; and Orazi e Curiazi (1996) for two percussionists.
In Experimentum Mundi, presented for the first time at the Teatro Olimpico in Rome in May 1981, Giorgio Battistelli stages sixteen craftsmen (a confectioner, two carpenters, two flint makers, two coopers, two bricklayers, two shoemakers, two blacksmiths, a stonemason, two knife grinders) with their tools, their works, their sounds, their rhythmic reiterations, building a great scenic and musical fresco that is ment to represent the theatre of sound and the dramatisation of concrete sounds.
The accuracy and control with which Battistelli dominates this material from a formal and dramaturgical point of view make Experimentum Mundi a cornerstone of instrumental musical theatre.
As part of the Biennale Musica 2022, a new production of Jules Verne will be presented, performed by the Ars Ludi ensemble and directed by Giorgio Battistelli at the Teatro La Fenice on September 14, 2022. The festival will end on 25 September with a new production of Experimentum Mundi at the Teatro alle Tese dell'Arsenale conducted by Giorgio Battistelli.

The award ceremony for the Leone d'oro will be held in the Sala delle Colonne at Ca' Giustinian on 15 September 2022 at 12. The ceremony will be followed by a conversation between the German musicologist Helga De La Motte and Giorgio Battistelli.


https://www.labiennale.org/en/news/2022-lion-awards-music