about us

This site is a record of set design work designed by Renato Theobaldo with the partnership of Roberto Rolnik Cardoso.
In addition to the set design of operas, in the repertoire there are projects and exhibitions, different by the use of many languages.
In these works, and more recently in museographic projects, they are curators, responsible not only for the creation and the production, but also for developing their content.

Renato Theobaldo

He started as a set designer in 1984 by signing the scenery from the film Estrela Nua, when here received the Award for Best Scenography at the Cine-Rio Festival. In the eighties, he does the art direction and scenography for film and television, including the animated short A Garota das Telas, awarded at festivals in Havana, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia. In the nineties, he signs the art direction of Carlos Reichenbach’s film Alma Corsária and diversifies his activities, working for the Samba School Vai-Vai, winner of the Carnival of São Paulo in 1993.In 1994 he starts, with the project Maria Clara Machado the development of interactive projects that mix theatrical performance with scenography, like the exhibition Mitos que Vêm da Mata (1998), the show Jardins Suspensos de Alice (1999) and the exhibition Por que, Pra Quê? (2002).

In 1996 he signs the scenery for the opera La Serva Padrona at Sesi Minas, in Belo Horizonte. For 8 years he took part at the Amazonas Opera Festival, where he developed the scenography for the following operas: O Guarani (2000), O Condor, Don Giovanni (2002), La Cenerentola and I Pagliacci (2003 ), Norma (2004) and “Ariadne” (2008), and the art direction of the opera Poranduba (2007).

At Teatro São Pedro, in Sao Paulo, he signs the scenic design for the operas Il Matrimonio Segreto (2007), Water Bird Talk, The Bear, Porgy and Bess (2008), I Pagliacci (2009), Werther (2012), Betrothal in a Monastery (2015) and Adriana Lecouvreur (2016).

For Palácio das Artes, in Belo Horizonte, he is the scenic designer for The Barber of Seville (2003), Nabucco (2011), A Masked Ball (2013) Rigoletto (2014), Lucia di Lammermoor (2015) and Romeo and Juliet (2016).

In Sao Paulo, for Teatro Alfa, he creates the scenic design for Madame Butterfly (1999). At the Theatro Municipal de São Paulo he designed several operas, including Andrea Chénier (2006), La Fille du Régiment (2007), Die Walküre (2011), Götterdämerrung (2012), Ça Ira (2013) and Die Zauberflöte in 2017.

In addition to working with operas, he began to develop projects for musicals, including the scenography for Hello, Dolly (2013), The Drowsy Chaperone (2013) and Nice Work if you Can Get It (2015).

In 2018 included “Faust” at the Teatro Amazonas, Der fliegende Holländer in Minas Gerais, and the Brazilian premiere Kátia Kabanová of Leoš Janáček at the Teatro Sao Pedro, and a highly acclaimed new production of Mozart’s La Finta Giardineira for the Silesian Opera in Bytom, Poland. In February 2019 he designed a new Don Giovanni for Wroclaw Opera, in April Aida for Theater Erfurt, and in June first Brazilian production of Janacek’s Vec Makropulos in Sao Paulo.
In 2021, he returns to collaborate with the Wroclaw Opera with Cosi Fan Tutte and made his first collaboration with the Estonian National Opera with Die lustige Witwe.

Roberto Rolnik Cardoso

Graduated in Architecture from the Universidade de São Paulo, he began his career as an artist, participating in many group exhibitions in which he received some awards, including the
first prize at the “Pinte São Paulo” contest of the Museum of Art of São Paulo (MASP) in 1988.
In the nineties, he starts his career as a set designer. He signs the set design of the movie Tônica Dominante by Lina Chamie (1996) and the movie Buena Sorte (1997), by Tânia Lamarca.
He keeps working with cinema and exhibitions, making the set design for the Natal no Palácio Avenida, at the HSBC building in Curitiba (between 2000 and 2003) and for the exhibition Memória Local (from 2001 to 2015) for the Museu da Pessoa. He continues making interactive exhibitions, like the 60 Anos da Cinemateca Brasileira (2006) and 50 Anos da Indústria Automobilística Brasileira (2007), at FIESP (Industries Federation of São Paulo). He signed the set design of the operas I Pagliacci for the Amazonas Opera Festival (2003), Poranduba (2007) and Ariadne (2008). In 2012, he joins the Richard Wagner’s The Ring of Libelung tetralogy project, and signs in collaboration with Renato Theobaldo the set design for the opera Twilight of the Gods. In 2013, they both become the scenic designers for Ça ira!, at Theatro Municipal de São Paulo.
He develops the scenic design for the musicals Hello, Dolly! (2012), The Drowsy Chaperone (2013), Nice Work if you Can Get it (2015) and Peter Pan.
At Teatro São Pedro, he signs the set design for the operas Il Matrimonio Segreto (2007), Porgy and Bess (2008), Water Bird Talk (2008), The Bear (2008), Werther (2012), Betrothal in a Monastery (2015) and Adriana Lecouvreur (2016).
Develops the scenography for the Tiradentes Court at TUCA (2017), the Exhibition about Leonardo Da Vinci, 500 Years of a Genius, at MIS Experience (2019) and the set design for Instrumental Sesc Brasil (2020).