As a baritone, actor and stage director, Luca Micheletti is one of the most original, eclectic and visionary theatre artists of his generation. His training began as a theatre actor, which then led to his appointment as resident stage director and artistic director of the Theater Company I Guitti di Brescia; all the while obtaining a doctorate in Italian Studies at the University La Sapienza in Rome, directing productions, acting for the largest national theaters, collaborating with Luca Ronconi, Umberto Orsini, and Marco Bellocchio, and receiving some of the most distinguished awards like the Ubu Award (2011), and the Pirandello International Award (2015). He has directed and/or interpreted dozens of shows in the most important Italian theatres, including: Koltès’ Hamlet (Napoli Teatro Festival, 2010); Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Teatro di Roma – ERT, 2011); Kafka’s Metamorphosis (CTB, ERT 2014); Mann’s Mephisto (CTB, 2015); Tabori’s Golberg Variations (Teatro Franco Parenti, 2016); Ibsen’s Rosmersholm and Peer Gynt (Teatro Franco Parenti – I Guitti, 2017-18); Jekyll, inspired by Stevenson (CTB, 2019); Histoire du Soldat by Stravinskij/Ramuz (Ravenna Festival, 2020); Faust Rapsodia, inspired by Goethe/Schumann (Ravenna Festival, 2021); The Memories of Ivan Karamazov, with Umberto Orsini playing the lead role – the latter was written and produced for the 2022 season opening of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan.
To mention his work in the film industry, he attended the Venice International Film Festival as protagonist in Bellocchio’s Pagliacci and in De Maria’s Italian Gangsters.
Next to his theatre stage activity, and following years of private training under Mario Malagnini, in 2018 he made his debut as an operatic baritone, interpreting Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen in Cagliari followed by Jago in the Otellostaged at the Ravenna Festival by Cristina Mazzavillani Muti. In 2019, for the same Festival, he directed his first opera: a new production of Carmen, thus making his way, both as a singer and a stage director, on several opera houses with productions led by important orchestra conductors, including Riccardo Muti.
Some of the roles he has interpreted include: Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan; Macbeth at the Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo; Don Giovanni at the Sydney Opera House, at the Royal Opera House London, and at the Teatro Regio in Turin; Rigoletto at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona; Conte di Luna in Trovatore at the Fenice in Venice; Enrico in Campanello at the Teatro Lirico in Cagliari; Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Ravenna Festival; Marcello in La Bohème, and again Escamillo in Carmen at the Rome Opera and at the Arena in Verona.
In 2021 he was also stage director and protagonist of the diptych La Serva Padrona, by Pergolesi and Trouble in Tahiti by Bernstein at the Carlo Felice in Genoa, where he returned the following season to perform and direct Lehàr’s The Merry Widow. He opened the 2022 Season of the Covent Garden playing the role of Don Giovanni, later interpreting the same role in Turin, where he was again conducted by Riccardo Muti. He performs three operas during the 2022/2023 Season of the Teatro alla Scala: I Vespri Siciliani, La Bohéme, Le Nozze di Figaro, and the Missa in Tempore Belli for the Christmas concert. He will also be back at Covent Garden to sing in Don Carlo.
He also enjoys a busy schedule as an author, working on translations, curatorship, adaptations, and his own works. Some of the projects he has worked on include Boris Vian (GAM 2008), B.-M. Koltès (Editoria&Spettacolo 2009, and Diabasis 2013), B. Brecht (Ponte Sisto 2011), Torquato Accetto (Bulzoni 2011), Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz (GAM 2012, and Enrico Damiani Ed. 2021), F. Kafka (Sedizioni 2014), Klaus Mann (Sedizioni 2015), Molière (Falsopiano 2018), H. Ibsen and F. Dostoevskij (Cue Press 2019 and 2022). Under the label Sedizioni he also published his first novel, Tutta la Felicità (2015), and the theatre compilation, Scenari di Belfort (2017).