ACTRESSES
Actress, author and director, Chiara Muti studied at the Paolo Grassi School of Dramatic Art in Milano and then at the Piccolo Teatro School in Milan directed by Giorgio Strehler. She made her theatre debut in 1995 alongside Valeria Moriconi. Since then she has been a protagonist in the major Italian Festivals and Theatres, with the great classical authors such as Sophocles, Euripides, Dante, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Shakespeare, Marivaux, Puskin, Gogol, Molnár, Wilde, Pirandello, Brecht, Yourcenar, Pasolini, Testori, as well as with contemporary authors such as Spadoni, Quintavalle, Cappuccio, Saramago, Mazzocut-Mis.
Her interpretations include Angelique in Marivaux’s La madre confidente, Giulia in Molnár’s Liliom, Iphigenia in Quintavalle’s Le Erinni, Lady Macbeth in Longoni’s Macbeth clan, the stepdaughter in Pirandello’s Sei personaggi in cerca di autore, Wilde’s Salome, Agave in Euripides’ The Bacchae, Francesca da Rimini, Teresa Guiccioli in Spadoni’s Ridono i sassi ancor della città and Antigone in Brecht’s version of Sophocles’ Antigone.
A multifaceted artist, as a singer-actress, she ranges from the classical to the contemporary repertoire, performing operas and melologues in compositions by Monteverdi, Benda, Debussy, Liszt, Prokofiev, Honegger, Strauss and Weill, and collaborates on new creations by contemporary composers such as Sollima, Betta, Ceccarelli, Tamborrino and Corghi, for whom she is the interpreter of four new compositions: Pia by Yourcenar for Teatro dell’Opera in Roma, Il dissoluto assolto by Azio Corghi, text by Saramago for Teatro National San Carlos in Lisboa, Giocasta for Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza and Blanquette for Accademia Chigiana.
Other performances include Tatiana in Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, Honneger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher for Spoleto Festival, Kurt Weill’s Marie Galante for Teatro dell’Opera in Roma and Sherazade for the National Theatre in Algier, and she is the interpreter of Debussy’s Le martyre de Saint Sébastien in Montpellier.
She has worked for film since 1997 directed by Giorgio Treves, Pupi Avati, Guido Chiesa and Franco Battiato, among others.
In 2007, she made her directorial debut with shows of which she is both author and actress: Il regno di Rucken, dedicated to W. A. Mozart, created for Salerno Theatre, Il sogno di Ludwig, a poetic journey on the tormented partnership between Wagner and Ludwig of Bavaria for the Ravello Festival, and Cardo rosso on texts by Maddalena Mazzocut-Mis, a fresco on the conflict between Russia and Chechnya for the Ravenna Festival.
Her artistic encounters include a fruitful collaboration with Belgian choreographer Micha van Hoecke and, since 2002, with writer Ruggero Cappuccio.
Since 2016, she has intensified her association with Elena Bucci, signing four-handedly three new creations: Folia Schakespeariana and Lumina in tenebris for Ravenna Festival and Due regine for Pompei theatrum mundi.
In 2023 she wrote, directed and performed L’enfant oublié for the Festival l’Offrande musical; the show will be presented in the next season at the Festival d’Aix en Provence.
In 2012 she made her debut in opera directing with Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna, conducted by Riccardo Muti for Ravenna Festival, followed in 2013 by Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas for Teatro dell’Opera in Roma, Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice for Opéra National Montpellier and in 2014 Puccini’s Manon Lescaut at Teatro dell’Opera in Roma. In 2016 she opened the season of Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari with Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. With the same composer in 2018 she opened the opera season of Teatro San Carlo in Napoli as a director of Così fan tutte (co-production with the Wien Opera House). In 2021 she made her debut at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. In 2022 she signed the direction of Nicola Piovani’s Amorosa Presenza for Teatro Verdi in Trieste, as well as Mozart’s Don Giovanni for Teatro Regio in Torino.
In the 2023/24 season, she directed I Puritani for the Bellini International Context at Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania and made her debut at Teatro alla Scala in Milano with Rossini’s Guillaume Tell.
