Strehler, Giorgio

Born Aug. 14, 1921, in Trieste. Italian stage director.

Strehler graduated from the Academy for Lovers of the Dramatic Arts in Milan in 1940 and acted with various drama troupes. He began his career as a stage director in 1941. In 1947 he organized and headed, along with P. Grassi, the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, Italy’s first resident drama theater. From 1968 to 1972 he headed his own theater company. In 1972 Strehler returned to the Piccolo Teatro.

One of Italy’s most prominent directors, Strehler is an advocate of the realistic theater and follows the main theoretical principles of B. Brecht. His best productions include Gorky’s The Lower Depths (1947), Goldoni’s A Servant of Two Masters (1947) and Chiozzotte Skirmishes (1966), and Brecht’s The ThreepennyOpera (1956), The Good Woman of Setzuan (1958), and Schweikin the Second World War (1961). Strehler has successfully staged Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (1956) and Shakespeare’s Coriolanus (1957) and King Lear (1972). He has also staged operas, including Verdi’s La Traviata (1947), Prokofiev’s The Lovefor Three Oranges (1947), and Cimarosa’s The Secret Marriage (1949), all at La Scala in Milan.