Silvia Paoli is an Italian director and actress born in Florence.
She started her career in opera as assistant director to Damiano Michieletto in various productions at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Zurich Opernhaus, and Theater an der Wien. She made her debut as an opera director with La Cenerentola in Tenerife, returning with Le nozze di Figaro and I Capuleti e i Montecchi, both later revived in Bologna. She directed Puccini’s Turandot for the AsLiCo circuit, Offenbach’s Vent du soir in Florence, Otello in Como, Donizetti’s Enrico di Borgogna at the Donizetti Festival in Bergamo, Lucrezia Borgia (Tenerife, Oviedo, Bologna), Carmen (Parma), La casa de Bernarda Alba (Tenerife), a revival of I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Sevilla), Iphigénie en Tauride (Bern), Il Turco in Italia (Martina Franca); Aleko and Pagliacci (Palermo); and Lucrezia Borgia (Seville).
Her staging of L’empio punito at the Innsbruck Festival earned her the German Critics’ Prize as Revelation of the Year and led to a new invitation to direct Bononcini’s Astarto, which received great acclaim from both audiences and critics. She made her French debut with Tosca in Nancy, later revived in Toulon, Nantes, Angers, Rennes, Limoges, and Vichy, and returned for Iphigénie en Tauride (Nancy), Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci (Toulon, Montpellier, Dijon), and La traviata (Nantes, Rennes, Tours).
Silvia Paoli studied modern literature at university and graduated from the “Paolo Grassi” Academy of Dramatic Art in Milan.
Photo: Ilaria Costanzo