Born in Barcelona, in 1969, Àlex Rigola has staged four shows at La Abadía: Husbands and Wives, based on Woody Allen’s film script, which has been touring for two years, Richard Dresser’s Better Days, O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, and Jarry’s King Ubu.
From 2003 to 2011, he directed the Teatre Lliure, one of the main theatres of Barcelona, where he staged, among many other shows, Cat on a hot tin Roof, Peter Morgan’s Nixon-Frost, Tom Stoppard’s Rock & Roll (awarded by the Critics of Barcelona, for the best show and best actress), 2666, after the huge homonymous novel by Roberto Bolaño (several awards: Premio de la Crítica de Barcelona, Premi Terenci Moix and two Premios Max), Richard III and Julius Ceasar, Brecht’s Saint Joan of the Stockyards, Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, and European House (prologue to ‘Hamlet’ without words).
Rigola also directed the opera The flying Dutchman, coproduction between the Liceu (Barcelona) and the Teatro Real (Madrid), and after finishing his period at the Lliure he worked as a free lancer. We may highlight his shows Coriolanus by Shakespeare,Tragedy, a visual poem based on Nietzsche’s Birth of tragedy, and Police Rat, based on a short story by Roberto Bolaño.
Many of his shows have been performed abroad: in Australia, Austria, Bosnia, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rusia, Taiwan and Venezuela.
Recenty he directed two shows in Germany: his reencounter with Bolaño’s 2666 at the Schaubühne (Berlin) and Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus.
Since 2010, Rigola directs the theatre section of the Biennale of Venice.