A theatre and opera director, Pia Partum graduated from  the College of Inter-Faculty Individual Studies in the Humanities at the University of Warsaw and the Aleksander Zelwerowicz  Theatre Academy in Warsaw. She was awarded a scholarship to  the Institut d’Études Théâtrales at Sorbonne Nouvelle University  in Paris. While a student, she assisted Jerzy Jarocki and Mariusz  Treliński. In 2018, she was a prizewinner in the international  competition for opera directors held by National Theatre in Mannheim. She has directed in Poland, Germany, and Czechia. Her  many contemporary-opera productions bring together different  theatrical and visual forms, and draw on classical literature. Chief  among them are Salvatore Sciarrino’s Luci mie traditrici, Superflumina, and Aspern Suite; Sidney Corbett’s Keine Stille ausser der  des Windes, based on Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet and  staged at National Theatre in Mannheim; Aleksander Nowak’s  ahat-ilī, to a libretto by Olga Tokarczuk; and Philip Glass’s  The Trial, a production nominated in three categories of the Jan  Kiepura Theatre Music Awards: best direction, set design, and  leading male role. Her contemporary-opera productions have  been presented at Warsaw Autumn, Sacrum Profanum, and New  Opera Days Ostrava. At the Polish National Radio Symphony  Orchestra in Katowice, she has cooperated with its Festival of Premieres and with Ensemble OMN, staging Richard Ayres’s No. 42  (In the Alps) and Sciarrino’s Quaderno di strada.

She has also directed many staples of the operatic repertory,  among them Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Verdi’s La traviata;  most recently, she staged John Blow’s Baroque opera Venus and  Adonis at the Polish Royal Opera in Warsaw, and Handel’s Alcina  for Freiburg Theatre in Germany (2025). She has worked with  the Grand Theatre in Łódź, Polish Royal Opera in Warsaw, Silesian Opera in Bytom, and Opera at the Castle in Szczecin.

Next up is Verdi’s La Traviata, which she will direct with the Italian choreographer Riccardo Buscarini. Premiering on the Maltese  island of Gozo, the production will mark the fiftieth anniversary  of Teatru tal-Opra Aurora.