This is not a Vivaldi biopic: Damiano Michieletto on Primavera

Cinema is no stranger to the music of Antonio Vivaldi. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Pretty Woman (1990), Shine (1996), John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) and Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), to name but five very different films, all borrowed from compositions by this 18th-century Italian Baroque composer and violinist. “There is a freshness, energy and melodic power that he has in his music,” remarks Damiano Michieletto, whose new film Primavera tackles the life of Vivaldi. “His music is very cinematographic.”

A composer whose work is inextricably linked with his hometown of Venice, Vivaldi’s most famous work, the series of violin concertos known as ‘The Four Seasons’, remains one of the most recorded and performed compositions of all time. Despite being ordained at 25 – and nicknamed ‘the Red Priest’ due to the colour of his hair – Vivaldi’s biography is less widely known to cinemagoers, depicted on screen in little-seen films like Antonio Vivaldi, un prince à Venise (2005), directed by Jean-Louis Guillermou, and Italian television movie Vivaldi, the Red Priest (2009), by Liana Marabini.

That is set to change with Primavera, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025. Directed by Michieletto, who makes his feature debut following an award-winning, two decade-long career staging operas, the film is adapted from Tiziano Scarpa’s novel Stabat Mater. Starring Michele Riondino as Vivaldi, it focuses on a time before he composed ‘The Four Seasons’, when he joined Venice’s Ospedale della Pietà, a foundation designed to care for abandoned and orphaned children.

Vivaldi was affiliated with della Pietà for much of his adult life, where he taught the girls music, fine-tuning its all-female orchestra and continuing to carve out his own compositions. “To teach in an orphanage was not a Plan B,” Michieletto explains. “It was a privilege for him to be there, to have an orchestra… it was luxury to have this. That’s why many talented composers were involved in these institutions.” It was a feverishly creative playground where some of Italy’s most gifted young musicians were on hand to road-test his work.

Set in 1716, Primavera’s story sees Vivaldi find nourishment in his relationship with Cecilia (Tecla Insolia), a virtuoso violin player he tutors. In Michieletto’s eyes, the fictional Cecilia is a nod to Anna Maria de la Pietà, the violinist that Vivaldi dedicated 28 violin concertos to. “Anna Maria… to me is like an alter ego of Cecilia,” he says. Anna Maria’s own story has not gone unnoticed; British author Harriet Constable’s 2024 novel The Instrumentalist explored her story. Here, Michieletto wanted to examine a master-pupil dynamic bonded by a love for their shared art form.

“It’s through loneliness that somehow [they come together] and they sense something similar between them,” says Michieletto. “For me, it was very important not to go into a romantic story, not to go into a love affair between the two of them. Which could have been a little bit poor for the story. The connection between the two is the music. The connection between the two is also the ambition…to express your inner voice.” Only one moment in the film, at the very end, does Vivaldi make physical contact with Cecilia – and even then it is just a gentle touch on the shoulder.

In many respects, the film is less a portrait of Vivaldi than it is a depiction of an era when women had almost no agency. Set to be married to a soldier, whereupon her musical career will be cut short, Cecilia comes to realise through her time with Vivaldi that there is more to life than playing the obedient wife. But, of course, her proto-feminist thinking is shut down by the patriarchy, adds Michieletto. “[She is told], ‘Well, that’s not up to you. You have no name. You have nobody. You have no money. You’re nothing. You are what we are thinking you should be.’”

In his depiction of those colliding worlds, Michieletto also blended the work of Vivaldi with that of his composer, Fabio Massimo Capogrosso. “I want to be very clear: all the music that is performed in the film is Vivaldi, all the music that is the soundtrack is contemporary,” he says. The director acknowledges it was a risk, mixing the music of Vivaldi with a more modern sound, but adds: “This is not a biopic on Vivaldi. This is not a realist history film like Amadeus [1984]. This is a film about two individuals. So there is the music of Vivaldi and there is the music of the inner life of this girl.”

The aforementioned Amadeus “was a reference”, says Michieletto – which will come as no surprise at all – although budgetary limitations meant he couldn’t be quite as lush as Milos Forman’s Oscar-winning film, which starred Tom Hulce as Mozart. “But it’s important to keep the quality of what you frame. It’s important to keep the quality of the image, of the colour, of the acting, of the sound. So you can do something small. But inside, it’s important to give some quality to the audience. And they will recognise that.”

While 2025 marked the 300th anniversary of ‘The Four Seasons’, Michieletto hopes the release of Primavera will draw attention to some lesser known compositions – sacred choral music like ‘Gloria in D Major’. “[This] was music that I didn’t know before. I knew just the most famous Vivaldi hits. So I think definitely [Primavera] gives the possibility to discover a wider aspect of the music of this man. Not only the stereotype of Venetian carnival allegro… but music that is very touching.”

Primavera is in UK cinemas from 24 April.