Opera director
ABOUT
Thanks to her studies, Laura Cosso has achieved a great expertise in musicology, to which she has joined her increasing commitment to opera direction.
She is considered one of the leading Italian experts of Berlioz, composer to whom she has devoted many essays, as Strategie del fantastico, dell’Orso, Alessandria, 2002 (also presented at the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris) and the monograph Berlioz, L’Epos, Palermo, 2008.
She wrote dramaturgy and staged operas for theaters such as Teatro Regio di Torino (“Le dannazioni” di Don Giovanni, 1998) and Teatro Regio di Parma (Ferdinando Paër, Camilla, 2000). For several years she has collaborated with the Laboratorio lirico of Ticino Musica Festival, for which she staged Rossini’s four farces: Il signor Bruschino, La scala di seta, L’occasione fa il ladro, La cambiale di matrimonio (Teatro del Palazzo dei Congressi, Lugano, 2008-2013) and Mozart Don Giovanni (Teatro del Palazzo dei Congressi, 2014).
She holds master-classes in China (Shanghai Conservatory of Music); she has been invited to South Korea to hold master-classes as well as presenting her stage direction of La Bohème (Theatre of Gwangju, 2013). In 2012-13 she has been involved from the Festival Nei Stëmmen for staging the trilogy of Mozart – Da Ponte Le nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni, the latter represent in several theaters of Luxembourg (Théâtre de l’Abbaye de Neumünster – Luxembourg, CAPe – Ettelbruck, Trifolion – Echternach). In 2016 she staged Cosi fan tutte at the Majestic Thatre of Shanghai.
After having studied both music and acting, after having achieved the Diploma in Singing and the Degree in Modern Literature (musicology) with honour and right of publication, she won the competition for holding the chair of Scenic Art as well as History of Music in Conservatoires.
At the same time, she becomes the artistic director of Novecento musicale europeo (Seconda Facoltà di Lettere – Università di Torino), for which she directs some productions. She devotes herself to contemporary music, writing essays on Bruno Maderna and Luciano Berio. Her essay on Un re in ascolto was judged «molto bello» by Berio himself, who chose her as collaborator for the CD -ROM Vicino alla musica,Editrice La Stampa, Torino, 1999.
She was involved in multimedia theater, pocket- version of opera, chamber music theater (including: Handel, Xerse, Alessandria, 2000 – Stravinsky, L’Histoire du soldat, Vercelli, 1992 – Britten, The Little Sweep , Milano, 2009). She has created theatrical versions of the liederistic repertoire such as Italienisches Liederbuch of Wolf (2015) and Des Knaben Wunderhorn of Mahler (2016), the latter represented both in Milan and for the Unione Musicale of Turin.
As a musicologist, Laura Cosso has written for several publishers (see publications’ list), she cooperates with the major theatres and concert institutions and is called upon to give lectures and radio broadcasts.
For three years, she has been member of the executive board of Fondazione per le Attività Musicali (FAM) Torino, which coordinates MITO Settembre-Musica Festival.
In 2008, with some colleagues, Laura Cosso founded the Laboratory Opera Studio of the Conservatoire “G. Verdi" in Milano, wher she is responsible of the production (among the operas: La Bohème, La Traviata, Il signor Bruschino, Rigoletto, Don Pasquale, Le nozze di Figaro and L’elisir d’amore)
She teaches Scenic Art at the Conservatoire of Milano.