Jorge Lavelli


Jorge Lavelli is an Argentinean theater and opera director. The son of Italian immigrants in Argentina, Lavelli has lived in France since the early 1960s. He became a French citizen in 1977.

Career

In 1963 he staged Witold Gombrowicz's play The Marriage, introducing this playwright to the French public. Lavelli later staged Gombrowicz's Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy and Operetta.
In 1967, Lavelli began a collaboration with Jean Vilar to stage Goethe's Triumph der Empfindsamkeit and Oscar Panizza's The Cathedral of Love. From 1987 to 1996 he was head of the Théâtre de la Colline in Paris.
Lavelli has staged plays by Calderón, Shakespeare, Corneille, Ramon del Valle-Inclan, García Lorca, Ionesco, Schnitzler, Brecht, Pirandello, Dürrenmatt, Thomas Bernhard, O'Neill, Arthur Miller, Harold Pinter, Peter Handke, Edward Bond, George Tabori, Chekhov, Bulgakov, and Mrocze, and operas by Bartók, Bizet, Debussy, Gottfried von Einem, Gounod, Janáček, Luigi Nono, Maurice Ohana, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Heinrich Sutermeister. As an opera director he worked mainly for the Paris Opera, but also for the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, and the Aix-en-Provence Festival.

Recognition

Lavelli has won theatrical prizes in France, Spain, and Italy. He was made Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1993, Commander of the Order of the Legion of Honor in 1994, and Chevalier and Officer of the National Order of Merit. He has been nominated seven times for the Molière Award for best director, although he has never won.