Franco Visioli

Monday 14 September 2020, 12:00 noon
Giardini - Arena

La Biennale di Venezia is to present the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Franco Visioli.
Antonio Latella has declared:

“With this Lion I would like to call attention to a figure that, in theatre, is often influential in the successful outcome of a production and its development for the stage: the composer, sound designer or, if you will, the dramaturgist of sound. Sound has always been fundamental to a play, it often has been and is a soundscape that supports the director when the set or costume design, or in some cases the actors themselves, cannot.
Franco Visioli is an extraordinary sound designer whose sound compositions have accompanied the greatest directors of the second half of the twentieth century, serving as a bridge to the directors of the twenty-first century. His sound dramaturgies have never been composed to be an accompaniment or comment to the sequence of scenes, nor a background of sound; they are actual scripts on top of the written plays, creating synergic relationships that enhance the fundamental steps by the author and director” (from the motivation). Maestro Visioli’s ability has been to use his talent to step into the worlds of the authors read by the directors with whom he has worked over the course of these years.
His compositions have always been able to connect with contemporary soundscapes, casting light on his constant research and readiness to avoid proposing languages of sound that are easy to listen to. In recent years, Maestro Visioli has not only accompanied established directors, but has also chosen to work with very young directors, to help them, through his art, to enhance and understand the importance of sound in the creative process, often highlighting the power that only silence can express. Learning to listen to silence, not to fear it, nor to censor it.
I personally believe that Maestro Franco Visioli, whom I have had the pleasure to know having shared part of my career as a director with him, has been capable, while eschewing the limelight, to guide to success many of the productions that have made a difference on the Italian and international scene.
At this moment, Franco Visioli is a point of reference for many young people who wish to explore sound composition for prose theatre”.

Franco Visioli (Mantova, 1956) graduated from the Recording Workshop in Ohio, USA, in 1987. Since 1988, he has worked on over 100 productions in major Italian and foreign theatres. He has collaborated with some of the most important directors in Italian and European theatre such as Thierry Salmon, Peter Stein and Massimo Castri, with whom he has worked consistently since 1989 on all the productions staged by the director. He has worked, among others, with Cristina Pezzoli, Agnese Cornelio, Marco Plini, Pietro Faiella, Marcello Cava, Stefania Felicioli, Tommaso Tuzzoli, Franco Palmieri, Monica Conti, Linda Dalisi, Katrin Hammerl, Irene Di Lelio, Giuseppe Stellato, and Leonardo Manzan. He met Antonio Latella in 2002, giving rise to an artistic partnership that led to the foundation in 2011 of stabilemobile. For Rai Radio3, he directed Totò il Buono (2006) and Francamente me ne infischio (2014). For the Biennale Teatro directed by Antonio Latella he held two masterclasses, in 2017 with Letizia Russo on the figure of Unica Zürn and in 2019 with Annelisa Zaccheria on the relation between set design and sound.