Paulo Giani Cei, associate director, was born in Italy. He is a director and designer and has assisted Stefano Poda in numerous productions all over the world. As an independent director/designer he has created productions of Madama Butterfly, La boheme (Puccini), La traviata (Verdi), La Voix Humaine (Poulenc), I Capuleti ed i Montecchi (Bellini), La Cenerentola, Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini), Don Giovanni (Mozart), Die lustige Witwe (Lehar) and others. He has worked at the opera houses of Pesaro, Buenos Aires, Florence, Cagliari, Moscow, Seol, Beijing, Bucharest, Strasbourg, Lausanne, Sao Paulo, Parma, Turin, Liege and others. At the Israeli Opera he was associate director of Les Contes d’Hoffmann (Offenbach).