Hugo de Ana director and composer

Hugo De Ana was born in Buenos Aires, where he graduated in Visual Arts and studied as a set designer and costume designer for cinema and theater. He began his career as Production Director and Director of Installations at the Teatro Colón, collaborating on more than thirty shows.

As a director, set designer and costume designer he created over sixty productions, receiving the critics' award for best direction for three consecutive years. In 1988 he began collaborating with the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid and with the Liceu in Barcelona.

In Italy he made his debut in 1990 producing Rossini's Moses in Egypt at the Teatro Comunale of Bologna and inaugurated the 1991-1992 season with a new production of Massenet's Werther. He subsequently curated productions of Rossini's Hermione at the Rome Opera, Semiramide at the Rossini Opera Festival, Puccini's Manon Lescaut at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Verdi's Don Carlo at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Moses in Egypt at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, a show later revived at Covent Garden in London, Verdi's Aida at the Teatro della Maestranza in Seville, Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann in Genoa, Lille and Catania, Bizet's Carmen at the Lille Opera and in Treviso, Genoa, Venice. Inaugurates the 1995-1996 Season at the Rome Opera with Mascagni's Iris; subsequently he presented Puccini's Turandot in Macerata, a show then resumed in Bologna.

In 1997 he received the “Franco Abbiati” Music Critics Award as best director and set designer for the shows Iris by Mascagni at the Rome Opera, Turandot in Macerata and Les Contes d'Hoffmann in Genoa. Among the most successful productions are: Samson et Dalila by Saint-Saëns in Macerata and Catania; Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, Verdi's Aida in Santiago, Chile and Bellini's Norma in Buenos Aires. He inaugurated the 1997-1998 Season of the Rome Opera with Respighi's La Fiamma and made his debut at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan with Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia; for the Sferisterio of Macerata he created Turandot, recently restaged for the New Israeli Opera; he is therefore involved in a new production of Aida at the Teatro Real in Madrid and of Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia for the Rome Opera, also on stage in Genoa and Buenos Aires. In 2000 he staged Verdi's La Forza del Destino with Riccardo Muti for La Scala and the subsequent tour in Japan, a production for which he received the "Opera Award" as best director, set designer and costume designer. He curates the staging of Massenet's Le Cid in Seville and at the Washington Opera; again at La Scala, he inaugurated the 2000-2001 Season with Verdi's Il Trovatore, directed by Muti.

In 2002 he was awarded the "Abbiati Award" as best director, set designer and costume designer for the 2000-2001 season. He creates the new productions of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore at the New National Theater in Tokyo and of Gounod's Faust at the Rome Opera, in co-production with the Regio di Torino. In 2003 he staged a new production of Norma again in Tokyo.

He achieved great success by directing Senso, a work by Marco Tutino, which inaugurated the Opera Season at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo in 2011. In 2012 he created the productions of Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky for the Massimo in Palermo, La Forza del Destino for the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and Tosca by Puccini at the Theater of Herodes Atticus in Athens. In 2013 he signed the productions of Verdi's Don Carlo at the Regio in Turin, Wagner's Rienzi and Verdi's Ernani at the Rome Opera.

For the NCPA in Beijing he staged Verdi's Un Ballo in maschera and Macbeth, Dvořák's Rusalka and, in January 2018, Massenet's Thaïs. Among his latest commitments are Jérusalem at the Verdi Festival in Parma, Puccini's La Fanciulla del West at the San Carlo in Naples and Aida at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Le Comte Ory for the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro (2022) and Bologna, where he also made Tosca. In 2023 he returns to La Scala for a new production of Verdi's I Vespri siciliani.

At the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona he made his debut in 1995 creating the staging of Les Contes d'Hoffmann and returned in 2004 for Norma which was also revived in 2017; in 2007 he signed the production of Bellini's La Sonnambula, revived in 2016 and toured at the Royal Opera House Muscat in January 2018.

He made his debut at the Arena di Verona in 2000, receiving acclaim from the public and critics, designing the direction, sets and costumes of Verdi's Nabucco, which was also revived the following year; he staged Tosca in 2006 (2008, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2019) and created Il Barbiere di Siviglia in 2007 (2009, 2011, 2015 and 2018). In 2011 he inaugurated the Festival with great success with a new production of La Traviata, also performed in 2013 and 2016. He inaugurated the 2018 Festival with a new staging of Carmen, revived in 2019. His stagings of Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Tosca return on stage for the 100th Arena di Verona Opera Festival 2023.