Roberta Guidi di Bagno

PRODUCTION DESIGNER

Born in Rome, Italy, Roberta Guidi di Bagno studied at the Accademia Libera del Nudo. She worked as an assistant to the late director and set designer for opera, theater and ballet, Pier Luigi Samaritani. For the past 40years, she has worked extensively with several major opera houses and ballet companies around the world. Over the years, Ms. Guidi di Bagno has received a number of prestigious awards including the “Positano Massine Prize for Ballet” for her artistic accomplishments (1997), Premio Anita Bucchi, and Giornale della Danza’s “Best Costume Designer in 2012”.

Ms. Guidi di Bagno has designed sets and costumes for Maggio Musicale Fiorentino: Vladimir Derevianko’s Don Quichote; for Teatro alla Scala Milan: Paquita, John Cranko’s Taming of the Shrew, Ronald Hynd’s The Merry Widow and The Nutcracker, Vladimir Bourmeister’s Swan Lake featuring Roberto Bolle and Svetlana Zakharova; for Teatro dell’Opera di Roma: Ricardo Nunez’s The Bat; for Teatro Smeraldo: Francesco Ventriglia’s Ergonomy with Roberto Bolle; for Fondazione Alda Fendi: Francesco Ventriglia’s La Lotta with Roberto Bolle; for Houston Ballet: Stanton Welch’s Romeo and Juliet and Giselle; for Royal Danish Ballet: Stanton Welch’s Ønsket “The Wish” and Ander “Ghosts”; for Deutsche Oper Berlin: Ronald Hynd’s Coppélia; for Semperoper Ballett Dresden: John Cranko’s The Taming of the Shrew, George Balanchine’s Coppélia and Aaron Watkin and Jason Beechey’s The Nutcracker; for English National Ballet: Derek Deane’s Romeo and Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty, and Strictly Gershwin; all three productions debuted at the Royal Albert Hall in London and later Romeo and Juliet toured to Australia with new sets. For Zagreb National Theater: Derek Deane’s Cinderella, The Nutcracker, and Swan Lake (set designs), and Vladimir Derevianko’s La Fille Mal Gardée.
In 2010, Ms. Guidi di Bagno designed new sets and costumes for Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Coppélia choreographed by George Balanchine. This newly designed production of Coppélia has also been performed by San Francisco Ballet and Semperoper Ballett Dresden.

Ms. Guidi di Bagno’s sets and costumes from Ronald Hynd’s The Merry Widow have been widely performed by various ballet companies such as Royal Danish Ballet, Teatro alla Scala Milan, Teatro San Carlo Naples, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Houston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, and Texas Ballet Theater.

She has designed the costumes for Maggio Musicale Fiorentino: Afternoon of a Faun (d’après Léon Bakst), featuring Rudolf Nureyev and Massimo Moricone’s Tre Pezzi per Fellini; for Musikteater Malmō: Massimo Moricone’s Romeo and Juliet; for Teatro dell’Opera di Roma: Bronislava Nijinska’s Les Biches and Paquita; for Teatro San Carlo of Naples: Luciano Cannito’s Amarcord; for Semperoper Ballett Dresden: Vladimir Derevianko’s Giselle and Chopiniana; for Teatro alla Scala Milan: George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations and John Cranko’s Onegin.

Ms. Guidi di Bagno’s costume designs for John Cranko’s production of Onegin has been highly successful and reproduced for Deutsche Oper Berlin, Teatro Colòn de Buenos Aires, Aalto Theater Essen, Israel Ballet, Teatro San Carlo of Naples, and Opéra de Nice.
She has also worked with ballet companies such as: Shanghai Ballet (Derek Deane’s Romeo and Juliet), Hong Kong Ballet (Ronald Hynd’s Coppélia), Estonian National Ballet (Ronald Hynd’s Coppélia), National Theater Maribor (Vladimir Derevianko’s La Fille Mal Gardée), Teatro dell’Opera di Roma (Luciano Cannito’s Cenerentola), Teatro San Carlo of Naples (Luciano Cannito’s Cenerentola), Queensland Ballet (Strictly Gershwin).
Her work in opera costume design credits include: Parsifal for Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi; a collaboration with Pier Luigi Samaritani with Lyric Opera Chicago as costume designer for Eugene Onegin; Otello for Teatro Bellini Catania; L’Incoronazione di Poppea for Teatro Verdi Pisa; La Belle Hélène for Teatro dell’Opera di Roma; Nabucco for Les Chorégies d’Orange; Don Pasquale conducted by Riccardo Muti for Teatro alla Scala Milan; Le Villi and Mese Mariano for Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina.

Her designs can be seen at San Francisco Ballet (Coppélia), Pacific Northwest Ballet (Coppélia), Queensland Ballet (Strictly Gershwin), and Houston Ballet (Giselle and Romeo and Juliet).

In 2018 she created new sets and costumes for Staatsballet Berlin’s Victor Ullate’s Don Quixote.

Ms. Guidi di Bagno has also created costumes in more than 25 films, for actors such as Faye Dunaway, Lauren Hutton, Jennifer Beals, Matthew Modine and Daniel Ezralow.

In 2019 Ms. Guidi di Bagno designed new sets and costumes for Victor Ullate’s Don Quixote for Staatsballet Berlin (Deutsche Oper).