Born in Turin, stage director and author Stefania Panighini has been a prominent figure on the theatrical scene for the last twenty years. In 2014, she launched the project entitled Hoperance: residential courses, performances and research for a crossover between the languages of opera, dance and visual art which has today become one of the main focus points of her artistic career.

She began her studies at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica Silvio d’Amico, and subsequently graduated from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory, Turin, in musical stage direction. She also graduated with a first-class honours degree in Musicology from the University of Turin. She has written several musicological papers, including a study of Pelléas et Mélisande for the Opéra Comique. Together with Sandro Cappelletto, she organised a series of conferences on La Traviata for Treccani held at the Fondazione Arturo Toscanini. In 2024, she gave a Tedx Talk at the Teatro Regio di Torino.

She is also intensely involved in teaching, with a focus on training opera singers in stagecraft, a field in which she is considered to be an authority in Italy. She has taught at the Accademia del Maggio Musicale, Florence; Teatro Pavarotti-Freni, Modena; Scuola Paolo Grassi, Milano and the Faculty of Arts, Music and Drama at the University of Turin.

She is currently a full professor of Theory and Technique of Stage Performance at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory, Como.

 

She has always engaged with both traditional and more niche repertoires, recently having staged Don Pasquale at the Calgary Opera, Kaiser Von Atlantis for the Lerici Music Festival and the Opera Giocosa, Savona; Ascesa e caduta della città di Mahagonny, culmination of a three-year music drama project at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi, Como and the Teatro Sociale, Como, which began in 2022 with Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène, followed in 2023 by Puccini’s La Rondine. That same year, she was stage director for L’Elisir d’amore at the Opera Giocosa, Savona and the Teatro Pavarotti-Freni, Modena, and Pagliacci at Wexford Festival Opera.

Her engagements for summer and autumn 2025 include directing Tosca for the summer season at the Teatro Verdi, Trieste; the diptych consisting of Poulenc’s Bal Masqué and the world premiere of La Torre by Marco Bargagna at the Teatro Verdi, Pisa, and the first modern-day performance of Turanda by Bazzini at the Teatro Sociale, Como.

 

She has directed Maria de Buenos Aires by Astor Piazzolla for the Teatro Pergolesi in Jesi, for the Luglio Musicale Trapanese and for l’Opera Giocosa, Le songe d’une nuit d’été by Thomas for Wexford Festival Opera, and Rinaldo for the Ópera de Tenerife. During the pandemic, she worked with the Florentine Opera, Milwaukee, on the creation of documentaries and musical video clips (a series entitled Voyages) and began a partnership with the record company Musica di Seta, writing scripts to be turned into podcasts and performances: Intrepidaria, narrating the lives of great women as if history had respected gender equality and Anomaliae, stories of women in psychiatric hospitals.

 

The 2019/2020 season marked the beginning of a partnership with Teatro delle Muse, Ancona, and her debut in Asia at the Daegu Opera Festival for a new production of La Traviata, particularly well-received for the direction of the acting and for its innovative stage set. Then, in a two-year inclusive theatre project staged at the Opera Giocosa, under 18s appeared on stage alongside over 65s for a production of Don Pasquale. The project on age inclusivity debuted in the 2018/2019 season, aiming to involve teenagers who appeared on stage in Il Barbiere di Siviglia.

 

Work in previous seasons included her American debut with La Traviata at the Dallas Opera, Nina pazza per amore at the Paisiello Festival and Opera Giocosa, La Bohème and Madama Butterfly at the Luglio Musicale Trapanese, Haendel’s Orlando at the Theater an der Wien - Kammeroper, the first modern day performance of Semiramide in villa by Paisiello in Taranto, Hansel und Gretel at the Ópera de Tenerife and L’Italiana in Algeri at the Lucca Opera Festival.

During her career, she has worked with, among others, the Teatro Regio di Torino, Teatro Valli di Reggio Emilia, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Opéra National de Lorraine, Teatro Municipale di Piacenza, Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini, Teatro Verdi di Sassari, Lugo Opera Festival, Teatro La Fenice, Venice, Teatro Grande di Brescia, Opéra de Nice, Festival della Valle d'Itria, Capalbio International Film Festival and the Piccolo Festival in Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

 

In 2004 she was awarded the ‘Idee per Alfieri’ Prize at the Festival Astiteatro.