Carmelo Rifici was born in 1973. He graduated in Modern Literature and trained at the school of theatre of the Teatro Stabile of Turin. He collaborated with Luca Ronconi in the productions of Progetto Domani, related to the 2006 Turin Olympics. He also collaborated with Ronconi on Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Ulisse doppio ritorno from Botho Strauss and Porfirio, Turandot by Giacomo Puccini and Il mercante di Venezia – The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare.
In 2001 he directed Cinque capitoli per una condanna for the Teatro Stabile di Torino. In 2002 he staged Anton Chekhov’s Tre sorelle – Three Sisters for Teatro Verdi and Teatro della Contraddizione in Milan. From 2003 to 2006 he was resident director at Teatro Litta in Milan, where he staged Il giro di vite – The Turn of the Screw, La tardi ravveduta, and La Signorina Julie – Miss Julie.
He has been a lecturer in acting and text analysis for the advanced course for actors at the IUAV in Venice, and the Centro Teatrale di Santa Cristina directed by Luca Ronconi, at the Scuola del Teatro Stabile in Turin and the Accademia dei Filodrammatici in Milan. Since 2014, he has been artistic director of LuganoInScena at the LAC theatre in Lugano, where he directed Gabbiano – The Seagull, Ifigenia, liberata from Euripides, Purgatorio and Avevo un bel pallone rosso. Since 2015, he has directed the Scuola di Teatro Luca Ronconi at Piccolo Teatro in Milan. In 2018 he directed Il Barbiere di Siviglia – The Barber of Seville, which marked the opera’s debut at LAC. In September 2019 he directed Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Maurice Ravel’s L’heure espagnole at the Teatro Grande in Brescia. In January 2020 he became artistic director of the LAC in Lugano, concurrently creating and staging the project Macbeth, le cose nascoste.
Together with Paola Tripoli, director of the FIT Festival, he is the creator of Lingua Madre, capsule per il futuro, which in fall 2021 was awarded the prizes Premio Hystrio Digital Stage and Premio Ubu, Progetti speciali.
In 2022 he adapted and directed Le relazioni pericolose – The Dangerous Liaisons based on the novel by Pierre-Ambroise-Francoise Choderlos Delaclos. In September of the same year he directed Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, conducted by Markus Poschner. In November 2022 together with Andrea De Rosa he directed Processo Galileo.
Still in 2022, he was a finalist for the international theatre award Premio Internazionale Ivo Chiesa – Una vita per il teatro (category “La scuola”) and in September 2024, he was awarded the Premio Hystrio for Directing.
< photo Michela di Savino. Nebula Agency for Luminanza
@ FIT
Dittico della bufera
Tre sorelle/Il Gabbiano
2025 Edition
03.10 – 12.10
Lingua Madre
2021 Edition
01.10 – 10.10
Avevo un bel pallone rosso
2018 Edition
26.09 – 07.10
