The director Luca Ronconi, After a long illness against which he had fought with courage and serenity, even in the difficult years of dialysis, He passed away ten years ago, on February 21, 2015, While his team was staged to recite, at the Piccolo Teatro Grassi in Milan, his last set -up, Lehman Trilogy. Ronconi, who on March 8, 2025 would have turned 92, He did his work as a director and master of actors, the center of his life, but for his shy and reserved character he did not like to be remembered, he was not interested in leaving a memory of himself, such as Eduardo De Filippo and Giorgio Strehler, who recorded some of their shows, but he considered his ephemeral works, that is to live only at the time of the preparation, So much so that he often did not see them again even at the first representation and, when it happened, he came out gripping “but it was not so”. His work was so in close contact with actors, scenographers, collaborators and workers, that The Piccolo Teatro – of which he was artistic director from 1999 to 2015in the difficult years of the “after Strehler” who died in 1997, founder and director of the same theater – he decided to remember him with Perspective Ronconi, By opening the initiatives in the work area of the Strehler Theater, a space on the border between the theater school for actors, which was dedicated to Luca Ronconi and the stage of the theater. To remember him, with a emotion and reverence, from which a sincere affection transpires, is His student Claudio Longhi, professor and director, and from 2020 director of the Piccolo Teatro, who has joined the master for a long time, becoming his right arm. Ronconi loved to set up grandiose shows, from the monumental Orlando Furioso of Ariosto, in 1969, in the reduction drawn up by Edoardo Sanguineti, born as a traveling show in Spoleto, to the installations at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, among which, Life is dream by Calderón de la Barca, The dream by Strindberg (2000), Lolita of Nabokov, The two Venetian twins by Goldoni, Candle by Giordano Bruno (2001), What he knew corn by James e Infinities of the mathematician Barrow (2002), up to the most recent The company of men of Bond (2011), Santa Giovanna dei Macelli by Brecht (2012), Panic (2013) by Spregelburd e Celestine (2014) by Fernando De Rojas.
Santa Giovanna dei Macelli of Brecht
The director’s long career
Before arriving at the Piccolo, Ronconi had collaborated with various theatrical institutions (director of the Teatro Section at the Venice Biennale, from 1975 to 1977, founder and director of the Prato Theater Design Laboratory, from 1977 to 1979), He had been director of the Teatro Stabile of Turin (1989 -1994), setting up, among others, The last days of humanity by Karl Kraus (1990), played by over sixty actors at the Lingotto of Turin. In 1994 he was appointed director of the theater of Rome, where he had set up, for example, King Lear by Shakespeare, Towards “Peer Gynt” from Ibsen (1995), Quer Ugly Pasticciaccio de via Merulana of Gadda (1996) e The Karamazov brothers From Dostoevsky (1998). Among his most famous shows also include Ignorabimus by Holz (1986), Dialogues of the Carmelite by Bernanos (1988) e Three sisters of Chekhov (1989).
In his regions he joined reinterpretations of novels, to the classics, like the Greek authors, to authors who loved particularly, recreating them with his critical and visionary gaze; His arrangements, thanks also to his collaborators, have always been great, spectacular, but also cumbersome, so much so that it was not uncommon for the actors, in addition to the typically Ronconian acting, that is, slowed down in order to enhance every single word of the text, they also learned new interpretative arts, using mimicry and sometimes acrobatics, and used the whole body in an expressive way.
Ronconi has never neglected the educational and pedagogical part, in the creation of the School of the Stabile of Turin, in the direction of the Piccolo di Milano school, He is now dedicated to him, and in the invention of the great laboratory, forge of actors who was and is Santa Cristina, a place where he took refuge to live in close contact with actors and collaborators and design the new arrangements. In fact, in 2002 ahe found with Roberta Carlotto, who now continues his work with passion and scruple, the Santacristina Theater Center, Production and training unit in a structure created specifically in the campaign between Gubbio and Perugia. In addition to holding summer courses of improvement and workshops for actors, with Santacristina Ronconi has made, among others, Love in the mirror (2002) with Mariangela Melato, Odyssey double returnunwriting The cave of nymphs by Omero and Porfirio e Itaca by Botho Strauss (2007).
But beyond the titles of the authors set up he set up, Ronconi’s teaching and inheritance remains In his inexhaustible curiosity that leads him to always experiment with new stylistic registers, without sticking to a single interpretative style of the texts, therefore ranging among the most varied issues that, as a scholar, wanted to enhance: the science that escapes the control of man in Infinitiesmedical ethics in Professor Bernhardithe fragility of finance in Lehman Trilogythe reinterpretation of the classics such as Prometheus or how The rangethe fragility of feelings like in Lolita. It was united dream and reality in his theater, bringing on stage situations and scenography that seemed impossible to achieve, botoles that opened, secret passages, labyrinths, actors who appear and disappear or who recite from unnatural positions, so as to recreate the text in a magical way, precisely as in a dream.
Ronconi perspective It is a set of initiatives of the Piccolo di Milano, designed to make the master known to the new generations, because he did not want to be remembered, or celebrated, is the idea of projecting, from the anniversary of his death, on February 21, 2025, until the date of his birthday, 8 March 2025, on the monitor of the Foyer of the three Milanese rooms of the little ones the images of the 33 shows he directed by him, produced by the little one, from 1998. appoints, to 2015, the year of death.
The day of his 92nd birthday (Saturday 8 March) is inaugurated In Rebus: fragments of a theatrical speechan exhibition/installation in the foyer of the three theaters with the exhibition of sketches, drawings, stage projects, photographs of the tests, models, costumes, as well as posters and stage photographs so as to show the uniqueness of its installations in a concrete way.
Always on March 8, 2025, in addition to the dedication of the first of I’m afraid Torero by Pedro Lemebel, directed by Claudio Longhi to Luca Ronconi staged at the Piccolo Teatro Grassi, will be presented It wasn’t like that. A portrait of Luca Ronconiat the Piccolo Teatro Studio Melato, Monday 17 March, an evening of readings and videos taken from the famous settings, with the Ronconian actors, including Franco Branciaroli, Giovanni Crippa, Laura Marinoni, Massimo Peopolizio, Galatea Ranzi. There will be an important publication in April 2025, published by Il Saggiatore, Luca Ronconi, Piccolo’s years: 1998-2015. Interview. The volume, edited by Eleonora Vasta retraces the years to the Milanese building, through interviews, reported in the room programs and released by the director to deepen the creation and creation of the shows created at that time, products, co -produced or to whose production the small collaborated. Among the interviewers Claudio Longhi, also the author of the contributions, together with Giovanni Agosti, Roberta Carlotto, Sergio Escobar. The volume will be presented on May 14, the date of the birthday of the foundation of the Piccolo, in the reduced of the “Arturo Toscanini” stages of the Teatro alla Scala; Another volume will also come out, the conference documents have always preferred not to leave trace. Luca Ronconi between Vita and Archive scene (Rome, 21-23 May 2024), and the monographic number of the Teatro alla Scala magazine dedicated to “Luca Ronconi alla Scala”, edited by Mattia Palma, to remember his lyric regions.
In the cloister Nina Vinchi del Piccolo, on Friday 16 May, a conversation will be held entitled a lens to look at the text: the dramaturgy of the space in the theater of Luca Ronconi between Margherita Palli and Marco Rossi, its scenographers, to discover drawings, sketches and scenic projects of its shows, preserved in the historical archive of the Piccolo. Among other important initiatives, a focus on its three cities and on the three theaters is proposed The memory of the theater. Luca Ronconi and Turin, Rome, Milan. Ormete project (May 26) with the results of the academic research path, in the context of footprints, which digitizes oral sources for the theatrical arts.
Perspective Ronconi is full of many initiatives so as to remember a multifaceted genius in many different ways.
