Tito Schipa Jr. was born in Lisboa (Portugal) following one of his father tours.
He lived his first years in Hollywood, then in Paris and in northern Italy.
From 1955 he lives in Rome, where he has studied modern literature, oriental
religions, history of music and theater, modern dance, singing, piano.
Musical autodidact, he graduated as a first class composer within the SIAE (the
italian association of authors).
He had an intense sport activity in athletics (national level juniores), fencing
(pupil of Agesilao Greco), target-firing, riding, underwater fishing, karate.
He entered the artistic activity as stage assistant to Giorgio De Lullo, Giancarlo
Menotti, Luigi Squarzina, Lina Wertmuller, in the specific field of musical
show.
His debut took place in Rome with "Then an Alley"(Piper Club, May 1967), world
first experiment of pop opera based on Bob Dylan's song-poems.
His own pop opera 'Orfeo 9" (1970) was the first one to be composed in ltaly
and the first one to be staged in the world. The filmed version of this opera,
performed and directed by himself, is at present a cult all over the world.
With two albums of his own (1974 and 1982) he achieved the best results as a
song-writer of the socalled "italian second generation".
In 1975 he founded the Teatro in Trastevere, major off-theater in Rome.
In 1983 his rock version of Donizetti's "Don Pasquale" was produced on Summer
Broadway by Joe Papp.
He was the youngest director ever (22) to stage an opera in an italian main
theater (Regio of Turin). His last 3 opera stagings occurred at the Teatro dell'Opera
di Roma ("De Profundis", "Salome" and "Trittico 900")
in the season 2006-2007.
His most successful seminar about operatic dramaturgy ("Opera Full Immersion")
has been recently proposed by the Oriental University of Naples.
He is the official translator for Italy of Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison.
Mother language: Italian
Spoken languages: English, French
E-mail: junior@titoschipa.it