Giorgio Strehler was born in Barcola, Trieste, on August 14, 1921. “I am descended from a family of musicians. My mother [Alberta Lovrič] was a celebrated violinist and was known by the stage name Albertina Ferrari. My grandfather was a celebrated horn player and later an opera impresario. For years he determined the fortunes of the Verdi Theater in Trieste.” His father Bruno, of Viennese descent, died prematurely of typhus in 1924. In 1928 Strehler moved with his mother to Milan, where he studied first at the Convitto Nazionale “Pietro Longone,” then at the Parini High School.

Giorgio Strehler in his early years in Trieste - Ph. Civic Theater Museum “Carlo Schmidl,” Trieste

In January 1943 he made his directorial debut with three one-acts by Luigi Pirandello (Novara, Teatro di Casa Littoria): “In the interruptions of this war - thanks to sick leave - I tried to stage different pieces. They were small pieces, in which I also acted, with rather poor means.” In October he married dancer Rosita Lupi, stage name Rosa Lupo Stanghellini. After the Armistice, infantry second lieutenant Strehler, hostile to the fascist regime, does not join the Republic of Salò and joins the Resistance. He is sentenced to death in absentia as a militant socialist and active anti-fascist. In 1944 he takes refuge in the military internment camp of Mürren, in Switzerland.

On March 6th he staged Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata (conductor Tullio Serafin) at La Scala. On May 14 he inaugurates the Piccolo Teatro with a staging of Maxim Gor'kij's Poor people's Hotel. In July the first staging of Carlo Goldoni's Servitore di due padroni. Paolo Grassi joined him in managing the theater: “There were two of us, one from Trieste and one from Puglia.” From now on, Strehler's life would largely take place either on the stage of the Piccolo Teatro or on that of La Scala.

During the rehearsal of Traviata with Tito Gobbi, Margherita Carosio, 1947 - Ph. Erio Piccagliani

On October 25, he visited Bertolt Brecht at his East Berlin home to discuss the staging of The Threepenny Opera, which the German playwright will see at the Little Theater on February 10, 1956: “He is in the audience, in his workman's safari jacket; we see that he is enjoying himself, laughing, applauding [...]. He is pale.” He will die a few months later, on August 14. On December 26, he inaugurated the Piccola Scala with the direction of Domenico Cimarosa's Secret Marriage (conductor Nino Sanzogno).

With Paolo Grassi, Bertolt Brecht, 1956 - Ph. Piccolo Teatro di Milano

In Salzburg he staged the memorable edition of Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio, where the young conductor Zubin Mehta was first revealed.

Paolo Grassi was appointed superintendent of the Teatro alla Scala (1972). Strehler returned to Piccolo Teatro as sole director. In March 1973 he staged Le nozze di Figaro (conductor Georg Solti) at the Opéra royal de Versailles. In the same year in Salzburg, at Das Spiel der Mächtigen (the German version of The Mighty Game), he met actress Andrea Jonasson, whom he married in Milan in 1981.

With Andrea Jonasson, Antonio Ghiringhelli, 1971 - Ph. Erio Piccagliani

The 19th-century Teatro Fossati in Milan was restored and transformed into the more modern Piccolo Teatro Studio. In 1987 a theater school ws opened within the Piccolo Teatro. In the same year, having left the Socialist Party, the director was elected to the Senate of the Republic as an independent on the Communist Party lists.