Jean-Luc Simonini

Jean-Luc Simonini was born in Paris, where he lived and worked until 2010. After an education as a photographer, he was studying at the Sorbonne and graduated in 1977 at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. From 1989 he ran together with his father the Ateliers de Scénographie Simonini in his hometown which set standards at European level in the fields of stage design. During the period of 30 years he dedicated himself as a painter and stage designer to numerous fields of work such as theatre, opera, ballet, cabaret but also fashion and museography. In doing so, he cooperated with personalities at important stages in Paris, St. Petersburg, Moskow and London like Karine Saporta, Pierre Lacotte and Rudolf Nureyev in the world of ballet, Karl Lagerfeld in the world of opera and fashion as well as Thierry Mugler in the category show.

Together with Pierre Lacotte he worked on ballets such as »Giselle«, »La Sylphide«, »Le Fils prodigue«, »Ondine«, »Coppélia« and the ballet scenes in the opera »Prince Igor«. In 2016 there was shown a retrospective »65 years atelier Simonini, Paris« in Dalian (China). With the Vienna State Ballet Jean-Luc Simonini was working for the first time for the premiere of Lacotte’s »Coppélia« (2019) in the Volksoper Vienna where he was responsible for the realization of the stage design after the Paris original designs from 1870.