Àlex Ollé

Director

Àlex Ollé (Barcelona 1960) is one of the 6 artistic directors of La Fura dels Baus, one of the more innovative and prestigious theatre companies of the Spanish Cultural Scene. It was founded in 1979 and distinguished from the beginning for the search of its own language in which the participation of the audience is essential in developing a sho. From the early period we can point to the shows Accions (1983), Suz o Suz (1985), Tier Mon (1988). In collaboration with Carlus Padrissa he has created, developed and directed Mediterrani, mar olímpic, the highlight of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in 1992, a show that astonished and fascinated millions of spectators all over the World. From this project, they have collaborated on different projects related to theatre, opera and cinema production.

Within the text theatre, Àlex Ollé has directed four shows: Faust 3.0 (1998), inspired on Goethe’s work, XXX (2004) based on the Philosophy in the boudoir by Marquis de Sade (both in collaboration with Carlus Padrissa) and recently and on his own, Metamorfosis – in collaboration with Javier Daulte – based on the novel of Franz Kafka, and Boris Godunov in collaboration with David Plana – a performance inspired by the assault on the Dubrovka Theatre in Moscow and in the work of Alexander Pushkin. With Miquel Gorriz  he directed Samuel Becckett’s play First Love as part of the Festival Grec of Barcelona.

Àlex has also developed a number of large scale shows, on his own or in collaboration with Carlus Padrissa, like La navaja en el ojo to inaugurate the Biennal de Valencia 2001; Naumaquia, created for the Forum Universal de las Culturas, Barcelona 2004; the opening of the Campeonato Mundial de Ciclismo en Pista en Palma de Mallorca 2007 and Window of the City the thematic show for the Shaghai Universal Exhibition 2010.

Fausto 5.0, the movie that he co-directed with Carlus Padrissa and Isidro Ortiz, won, among others, the award ‘Melies de Oro 2003’ for the best European fiction movie and has been, so far, the sole incursion of Àlex Ollé to the cinema world.

Àlex Ollé’s early works in the opera and in collaboration with Carlus Padrissa were Atlantida (1996), from Manuel de Falla and The Martyr of Sant Sebastián (1997) from Claude Debussy. Later The Damnation of Faust from Hector Beriloz, that was premièred at the Salzburg Festival in 1999; DQ, Don Quijote en Barcelona (2000), with music by José Luis Turina and libretto by Justo Navarro, a production for the Gran Teatro del Liceo in Barcelona; Mozart’s Magic Flute presented in the Rühr Biennal in coproduction with Opéra of Paris and the Teatro Real in Madrid; Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Leoš Janáček’s Journal d’un Disparu coproduced by Opera Garnier of Paris and Gran Teatro del Liceo in Barcelona.

In collaboration with Valentina Carrasco he staged György Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, which premièred at the theatre of La Monnaie in Brussels in a co-production with Gran Teatro del Liceo, the English National Opera and the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. The opera was chosen for the opening of the 50 Festival of the Arts of Adelaide 2010, Australia. Together with Carlus Padrissa he staged Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (2010) which premiered at the Teatro Real in Madrid and broadcasted live via satellite to 127 cinemas of Europe and Mexico. Directed Quartett (2011), by Luca Francesconi, based on the homonymous theatrical work by Heiner Müller, the opera premièred at La Scala de Milán in co-production with the Wiener Festwochen and with the collaboration of Ircam, Tristan et Isolde (2011), by Richard Wagner, for the Opera National de Lyon. French review positions this production as one of the three best of the year in his winners’ list published by Le Temps. His last work is Oedipe by George Enescu, a piece directed in collaboration with Valentina Carrasco for the Opéra de la Monnaie in Brussels in co-production with the Théâtre National de l’Opéra de Paris.