Fabiana Piccioli

Italian lighting designer Fabiana Piccioli makes her Royal Opera debut in the 2019/20 Season designing the lighting for Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.  

Piccioli initially trained as a dancer and studied philosophy in Rome. She pursued her dancing career in Belgium (2000–2) before moving back to Rome to join the Romaeuropa Festival as a production manager. In 2005 she moved to London and joined Akram Khan Company as Technical Director and Lighting Designer, touring with the company worldwide. Since 2010 she has worked as a freelance lighting designer. Her opera credits include Eugene Onegin for Scottish Opera (directed by Oliver Mears) and for Opéra national du Rhin (directed by Marko Letonja), Powder Her Face for Irish National Opera (directed by Antony McDonald), The Marriage of Figaro for La Scala, Milan (directed by Frederic Wake-Walker) and Rigoletto for Nevill Holt Opera (directed by Oliver Mears). Her theatre credits include Ophelias Zimmer for Schaubühne Berlin and the Royal Court Theatre (directed by Katie Mitchell) and Bagaar (Toneelhuis, Antwerp, directed by Guy Cassiers).  

Piccioli has designed ballet lighting for companies including Shobana Jeyasingh Company, Ballets de Monte-Carlo, Royal Ballet Flanders, English National Ballet, Rambert and Aakash Odedra Company, and worked with choreographers including Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Shobana Jeyasingh, Kim Brandstrup, Jeroen Verbrueggen and Carlos Acosta. She also designed lighting for the Lowry Exhibition at the Lowry Centre, Manchester. She has won the Knight of Illumination Award for Dance twice (2013 and 2017) and the Knight of Illumination Robert Juliat Award for Opera once (2018, for Eugene Onegin).