Giorgio Strehler

The Teatro Strehler theatre in Milan is named after him. He switched parties to the Independent Left, for which he was a Senator from 1987 to 1992, representing Lombardy.

Giorgio Strehler studied at Accademia dei Filodrammatici. The recorded working language is Italian. The field of work recorded is theatre, theatre studies and acting. Places of work recorded in the authority are Strasbourg, Brussels and Milan. Employment is recorded with Piccolo Teatro. Positions recorded include President of the Jury at the Cannes Festival and member of the Senate of the Italian Republic. Distinctions recorded are Knight of the Legion of Honour, Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts order, Europe Theatre Prize and Friedrich Gundolf Prize.

• Name — Giorgio Strehler • Order — Member of the Senate of the Republic • Term Start — 2 July 1987 • Term End — 22 April 1992 • Constituency — Lombardy • Order2 — Member of the European Parliament • Term Start2 — 26 September 1983 • Term End2 — 23 July 1984 • Constituency2 — North-West Italy • Born — 14 August 1921 • Birthplace — Trieste, Kingdom of Italy • Died — 25 December 1997 • Place of death — Lugano, Switzerland • Party — PSI (1979–1984) Independent Left (1987–1992) • Alma Mater — Accademia dei Filodrammatici University of Pavia • Occupation — * Theatre director • actor

Strehler was born in Barcola, Trieste. His father, Bruno Strehler, was a native of Trieste with family roots in Vienna and died when Giorgio was only three. His maternal grandfather, Olimpio Lovrich, subsequently became his father figure. Olimpio was one of the finest horn players of his day and the impresario of the Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi, Trieste's Opera House. When he was seven, his grandfather died, and he moved to Milan with his mother and grandmother. As a child, Strehler was not impressed by theatre. He found it "false" and decided it did not have the power to stir one's emotions as film did. His opinions changed one hot summer night while on his way to the cinema. He noticed a sign advertising the air-conditioning posted by the Odeon Theatre. He walked in for some relief from the weather to see a performance of Carlo Goldoni's Una delle ultime sere di Carnevale being given by a company from Venice. He went every evening for the next few days to see more plays by Goldoni. Newly inspired by the theatre, he applied and was accepted to the theatre school Accademia dei Filodrammatici. During the war, Strehler went into exile in Switzerland. With Geneva's Compagnie des Masques, he directed the world premiere of Albert Camus's Caligula. After the war, he became a theatre critic for Milano Sera but he preferred making theatre rather than writing about it. It was at this time that he started the Piccolo Teatro di Milano with Paolo Grassi. It opened on 17 May 1947 in the auditorium of the Broletto Cinema with Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths. A few days later, they staged Carlo Goldoni's long forgotten Arlecchino: Servant of Two Masters commedia dell'arte, which would go on to become the longest running play in Italian theatre. In that same year, he also directed Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata at La Scala, the first of many opera productions he would direct. Strehler focused on culturally relevant theatre. He did not want to "pay an abstract homage to culture" or "to offer a mere distraction... passive contemplation". Instead, both Strehler and Grassi agreed that theatre was "a place where people gather to hear statements that they can accept or reject".

• Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher (Arthur Honegger) La Scala, Milan (1946) • Lulu (Alban Berg) Venice (1949) • La favola del figlio cambiato (Gian Francesco Malipiero), Venice (1952) • The Fiery Angel (Sergei Prokofiev) Venice (1955) • L'histoire du soldat (Igor Stravinsky) Piccola Scala, Milan (1957) • Un cappello di paglia di Firenze (Nino Rota) Piccola Scala, Milan (1958) • Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Kurt Weill) Piccola Scala, Milan (1964) • Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Mozart) Salzburg Festival (1965) • Cavalleria rusticana (Pietro Mascagni) La Scala, Milan (1966) • Fidelio (Beethoven) Florence (1969) • Simon Boccanegra (Verdi) La Scala, Milan (1971), Vienna State Opera (1984) • Le nozze di Figaro (Mozart) Paris (1973), Milan (1980) • The Magic Flute (Mozart) Salzburg Festival (1974) • Macbeth (Verdi) La Scala, Milan (1975) • Falstaff (Verdi) La Scala, Milan (1980) • Don Giovanni (Mozart) La Scala, Milan (1987) • Così fan tutte (Mozart), Piccolo Teatro, Milan (1998) (note: Strehler died during the final rehearsals)

• Richard II, Shakespeare (1948) • Julius Caesar, Shakespeare (1953) • Coriolanus, Shakespeare (1957) • Power Games (an adaptation of Shakespeare's first Henriad) (1965) • Re Lear, Shakespeare (1972)L'Illusion Comique • The Tempest (play) Shakespeare (1978) • L'Illusion, Pierre Corneille (1984, Paris Odéon Théâtre de l'Europe) • Harlequin in all its versions, the oldest and most famous Italian show (beginning from 1947) • The Trilogy of Holiday (1954) • Servant of Two Masters by Goldoni (1964) • Il campiello (1975) by Goldoni • Platonov by Chekhov (1959) • The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov (1955, 1974) • The Mountain Giants (1947, Piccolo Teatro, Milan; 1966, Teatro Lirico/Piccolo Teatro, Milan; 1994 both in Milan and in Vienna at the Burgtheater), Pirandello • As You Desire Me (1988 to present) by Pirandello • El nost Milan (1955 and 1979) and Egoist by Bertolazzi (1960) • The House of Bernarda Alba by García Lorca (1955) • The Storm, Strindberg, Piccolo Teatro, (1980) • The Visit of the Old Lady by Dürrenmatt (1960) • The Great Magic by Eduardo De Filippo for drammaturgia contemporary (1985) • Three Penny Opera by Bertold Brecht (1956) • The Good Person of Setzuan by Bertolt Brecht (1958, 1981 and 1996) • Saint Joan of the Stockyards by Bertold Brecht (1970) • Galileo Galilei by Bertolt Brecht (1963) • Das Spiel der Mächtigen, Salzburg Festival, 1974; Burgtheater, Vienna, 1975 • Trilogie der Sommerfrische (Trilogia della villeggiatura), Carlo Goldoni, Vienna, Burgtheater, 1974 On 10 October 2005, a stretch of road in front of the Politeama Rossetti in Trieste was dedicated to Giorgio Strehler.

Giorgio Strehler worked in theatre, theatre studies, acting and directing. He was employed by Piccolo Teatro. Recorded positions include President of the Jury at the Cannes Festival, member of the Senate of the Italian Republic and Member of the European Parliament. He belonged to Academy of Arts, Berlin, Academy of Arts of the GDR and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He worked at Strasbourg, Brussels and Milan.

In 1990, Strehler was awarded the III Europe Theatre Prize, in Taormina, with the following motivation: The work of Giorgio Strehler, to whom the 1990 Europe Theatre Prize has been unanimously awarded by the Jury, is a cornerstone in the construction of post-war European Theatre. He has worked not only as a director, but also as manager, guiding light, actor, writer, translator, teacher, and advocate of an all-embracing "theatrical idea" rooted in the fabric of society and politics, which has had an impact throughout European theatrical culture. Various aspects of his personality converge in his constant and single-minded attempt to build the necessary structures for a European theatre intended as a common workshop of new ventures and experiences. Starting in the Piccolo Teatro di Milano, this determination eventually flowered into the foundation of the first really European theatrical organism, the Théâtre de l’Europe, which Strehler was called to direct. Today Strehler's activities have expanded to even greater dimensions in the context of the transformation which our continent has undergone, and which theatre has done so much to promote.

• Honorary degree, University of Pavia, 1992.