Giorgio Strehler

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Giorgio Strehler (born August 14, 1921 in Trieste , † December 25, 1997 in Lugano ) was an Italian director and politician.

Strehler was one of the most famous theater directors in Europe . In his Milan Piccolo Teatro he created outstanding Bertolt Brecht and William Shakespeare interpretations that put him on a par with Peter Brook and Peter Stein in European theater history.

Life

Beginnings

Strehler was the son of an Austrian and a Slavic mother, his grandmother was French. Strehler lived during the Second World War in exile in Switzerland . There he started with the theater. Together with other exiles from various countries, he founded the Compagnie des Masques theater group in Geneva . His first production as a director was Mord im Dom by TS Eliot and the second was Caligula , a moderate debut piece by Albert Camus . Both productions were made in Switzerland.

Italy

After the war he went back to Italy and continued with his theater work. His first production in Italy was Mourning Electra by Eugene O'Neill . His first works are influenced by the neo-realism of Italian film, especially the films by Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica . On the tenth anniversary of Maxim Gorki's death , Strehler staged the independent production Die Kleinbürger . The acting troupe was organized by Paolo Grassi and a little later formed the core for the establishment of the Piccolo Teatro. It was the first permanent spoken theater in Italy. The ensemble toured all of Europe as early as the mid- 1950s and developed into Italy's cultural export hit. Strehler's preoccupation with the Commedia dell'arte was seen as exemplary. His staging of Carlo Goldoni's servant of two masters is considered one of the theatrical masterpieces of the 20th century and is regularly revived at the Piccolo Teatro to this day. This success was only possible through the collaboration with Amleto Sartori, a sculptor who from then on devoted himself entirely to the production of the theater mask, and Strehler's research into the special "movements" of the Commedia dell'arte .

Since the late 1950s, Strehler has mainly worked with the set and costume designer Luciano Damiani . This team achieved internationally acclaimed productions, such as Bertolt Brecht's Life of Galilei in 1963 or Carlo Goldoni's Le baruffe chiozzote ( Much Noise in Chiozza ) in 1964 . At the end of the 1960s there were artistic differences, which is why Strehler now increasingly resorted to Damiani's pupil Ezio Frigerio , who acted as a constant partner especially in the later years.

International activity

Strehler staged in many theaters in Europe. For the Salzburg Festival , he worked in 1973 in the Felsenreitschule one with The Game of the Mighty titled version of William Shakespeare's King drama about Henry VI. , (musical direction: Peter Ewaldt , with Andrea Jonasson , Michael Heltau , Will Quadflieg and others). In 1974 he worked on Carlo Goldoni's trilogy of summer freshness at the Vienna Burgtheater (stage design, costumes: Frigerio; with Heltau, Jonasson, Susi Nicoletti and others) and again in 1975 Das Spiel der Mächtigen . His Threepenny Opera in Paris (set by Frigerio) had great success in the mid- 1980s . With an international ensemble, including Michael Heltau as Mackie Messer , Milva as Pirate Jenny , Barbara Sukowa as Polly and Yves Robert as Mr. Peachum , he created a very positively received performance. In 1994 he returned to the Burgtheater - the director of which he had repeatedly spoken to - to perform Luigi Pirandello's Die Riesen vom Berge (Frigerio set, Franca Squarciapino costumes ).

Opera direction

He was also active as an opera director at all the major opera houses in the world, especially at La Scala in Milan , where he had staged for the first time in the late 1940s and where he kept returning. There he designed, for example, Giuseppe Verdi's Simon Boccanegra in 1971 in a staging that was heavily acclaimed by critics and the audience (stage design, costumes: Frigerio; conductor Claudio Abbado ), in 1975 Verdi's Macbeth (stage design, costumes: Damiani; conductor Abbado) or in 1980 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (set design: Frigerio, costumes Squarciapino; conductor Riccardo Muti ). The great international breakthrough as an opera director, however, took place in 1965 at the Salzburg Festival with a design of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Seragl (set design, costumes: Damiani; conductor Zubin Mehta ; with Fritz Wunderlich , Anneliese Rothenberger , Fernando Corena and Michael Heltau as Bassa Selim). In 1974 he directed Mozart's Die Zauberflöte in Salzburg (stage design, costumes: Damiani; conductor Herbert von Karajan ), which, however, was less fortunate, not least for musical reasons and because of the enormous dimensions of the Great Festival Hall. In the dispute, especially with Karajan, Strehler therefore ended his collaboration with the festival, with which he had planned an intensive collaboration (including a production of Mozart's Don Giovanni ). Later attempts to bring Strehler back to Salzburg failed. Strehler brought his now legendary Simon Boccanegra to Paris in 1978, and in 1984 he dedicated himself to this Verdi opera one last time at the Vienna State Opera .

Strehler also taught at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna as a guest lecturer.

Strehler died of a heart attack at Christmas 1997 . His last planned production, Mozart's Così fan tutte , he could no longer complete, there remained a total of eleven days of rehearsal. The performance was completed by Strehler's employees (including the set designer Frigerio). Strehler was married to the German actress Andrea Jonasson .

politics

In 1983 and 1984, Strehler was a member of the European Parliament after moving up for Bettino Craxi . In 1987 he was elected to the Senato della Repubblica .

Private

Strehler did not separate his artistic activity from his private life. In 1973 he met Andrea Jonasson in Salzburg, whom he married in 1981. The often stormy marriage did not end in divorce, but in the last years of Strehler's life the two separated. When Strehler died in 1997, there was a complicated inheritance dispute between Mara Bugni, Strehler's partner for eight years, and Andrea Jonasson, his lawful widow.

Awards and honors

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Program detail: Giorgio Strehler - The Game of the Mighty I. In: Salzburg Festival Archive. Retrieved February 1, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Dietmar Polaczek: Widows' dispute over Strehler's estate , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Feuilleton, January 9, 1998
  3. ↑ dp (Dietmar Polaczek): Opus postumum - Strehler's estate, a bone of contention , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, features section, January 12, 1998
  4. ↑ Wolfgang David: The duel of the widows. In: Die Zeit, Kultur. Zeit Verlagsgruppe, January 23, 1998, accessed April 11, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Strehler, Giorgio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian director and politician, MEP
DATE OF BIRTH August 14, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Trieste
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1997
Place of death Lugano