Luigi Bonino

Luigi Bonino, born in Bra, Italy, has been the Artistic Director of all the ballets of the renowned French choreographer Roland Petit (1924–2011) since his death. He received his ballet training with Susanna Egri in Turin. Following an engagement as a soloist with the Cullberg Ballet, he joined the Ballets de Marseille in 1975 under the direction of Roland Petit. Among the many roles Petit created for him, the parts of Ulrich in La Chauve-souris and the title role in Charlot danse avec nous stand out. He also created roles in Septentrion, Parisiana 25, Soirée Debussy, Les Hauts de Hurlevent, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Les Quatre Saisons, Le Chat botté, Ma Pavlova, and Duke Ellington Ballet. He performed important roles as well in Coppélia, Le Jeune homme et la mort, Notre-Dame de Paris, Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, Les Intermittences du cœur, and in productions created especially for Zizi Jeanmaire.

In 1984, Luigi Bonino began working as Roland Petit’s assistant at La Scala in Milan, a position he held until Petit’s death in 2011. He was responsible for staging and reviving numerous ballets, including Ma Pavlova, The Blue Angel, La Chauve-souris, La Chambre, Carmen, Le Jeune homme et la mort, L’Arlésienne, Pink Floyd Ballet, La Dame de pique and Coppélia for prestigious ballet companies at La Scala in Milan, Paris Opera, the Rome Opera, Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, the New National Theatre Tokyo, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the Asami Maki Ballet, the National Ballet of China in Beijing and Aterballetto, among others. Today, Luigi Bonino is responsible for the worldwide staging of Roland Petit’s works and serves as artistic director of his repertoire.

With the Vienna State Ballet, he has staged the premiere of Die Fledermaus (2009), L’Arlésienne (2012), as well as Le Jeune homme et la mort (2012) and an excerpt from Le Rendez-vous (2018) for the Nureyev Galas.