This is the first book in English on Italy’s leading director, Giorgio Strehler. For the last half century, Strehler has been an influential and integral part of European theatrical life; today he is most closely associated with the Teatro Piccolo in Milan, Italy’s foremost repertory theatre. Outside Italy, Strehler is best known through his directorship of the Paris-based Théâtre de l’Europe, his opera productions, and the plays in the Piccolo repertoire which have toured widely. In this detailed study, David Hirst evaluates the particular qualities which typify Strehler’s work: the lyrical realism which has become the hallmark of his mature style, the fusion of naturalism, epic theatre, commedia dell'arte and lyric opera, and the gift of interpretation and production.