The Festival dei Due Mondi bids farewell to Adriana Asti, great star of Italian theatre and cinema

Spoleto, 31 July 2025 – President Andrea Sisti, the Board of Directors, the Board of Auditors, Artistic Director Monique Veaute, Paola Macchi and the entire staff of the Fondazione Festival dei Due Mondi join in mourning the loss of Adriana Asti, who passed away today in Rome. One of the most significant figures in Italian theatre and cinema, Asti left a lasting legacy in the history of the Festival with unforgettable performances, leaving her mark both on stage and in the cultural life of the city of Spoleto.

Her extraordinary career, spanning over sixty years, saw her collaborate with some of the most renowned Italian and international directors: Luchino Visconti, Giorgio Strehler, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci, Luis Buñuel, Luca Ronconi, Marco Tullio Giordana, Robert Wilson and Benoît Jacquot. Her ability to move between classical and experimental works, from cinema to stage, from prose to theatrical autobiography, made her a singular and recognisable artist, a free and nonconformist voice in the Italian cultural landscape.

Her bond with the Festival dei Due Mondi was both profound and enduring. The first photo of her in Spoleto dates back to 1958, the year of the Festival’s inaugural edition, when she was captured in a bar in the city with Luchino Visconti. From then on, Adriana Asti returned repeatedly as the protagonist of productions that shaped the Festival’s recent history, sharing her artistic and personal journey with Giorgio Ferrara, Artistic Director from 2008 to 2020 and her life partner. Together they shared visions, stagings, and programming choices, helping to define the theatrical soul of the Festival in its years of renewal.

Her most memorable appearances at the Festival dei Due Mondi include:
• Happy Days (2009), by Samuel Beckett, directed by Robert Wilson
• Milano che non c’è più (2011), a tribute to her hometown
• La voix humaine / Le bel indifférent (2013), directed by Benoît Jacquot
• The Dance of Death (2014), with Giorgio Ferrara, directed by Luca Ronconi
• Il mare è blu – Jadasmeeristblau (2015), based on a song from Happy End, with selections from the Brechtian repertoire
• Memorie di Adriana (2017), by Andrée Ruth Shammah
• Donna Fabia (2018), a film installation by Marco Tullio Giordana
• La Ballata della Zerlina (2019), at the Teatro Caio Melisso Carla Fendi, in the role of the rebellious Zerlina, alongside Lucinda Childs

Memorie di Adriana premiered nationally at Spoleto60: an introspective monologue in which Adriana Asti recounted her life through memories, irony, and reflection, turning the stage into a space of inner truth.

Her choice to perform at the Teatro Caio Melisso Carla Fendi during her final appearances in Spoleto was no coincidence: restored in 2010 to host the Festival’s prose section, it became the ideal setting for her most powerful theatrical interpretations.

Her stage work ranged from classical to contemporary authors: Saint Joan by Shaw, La locandiera by Goldoni, Tre uomini per Amalia, Alcool – her autobiographical piece from 1999 – and a French-language performance in Ferdinando. She never truly left the stage, even in recent years.

Her impact on cinema was equally profound: from Accattone by Pasolini (1961), where she played “Amore”, to the unconventional aunt in Before the Revolution by Bertolucci (1964), from Buñuel’s The Phantom of Liberty (1974) and A Brief Vacation by Vittorio De Sica, to The Best of Youth (2003) and Once You’re Born You Can No Longer Hide (2005) by Marco Tullio Giordana. She also starred in Tosca e le altre due (2003), directed by Giorgio Ferrara.

She received numerous awards and honours throughout her career, including:
• Special David di Donatello (1974)
• Three Nastro d’Argento awards: for A Brief Vacation (1974), The Inheritance (1977), and The Best of Youth (2004)
• Special Nastro d’Argento (2015)
• SIAE Award (1990)
• Eleonora Duse Award (1993)
• Ciak d’Oro

Rome was both home and stage for her – from the Teatro Argentina and the Teatro Eliseo to the world of film – just as Spoleto became, for many years, the place where she could freely express her artistic voice.

In 2015, she told her story in the documentary A.A. – Professione attrice, filmed between Rome and Paris. In 2023, she was the focus of a touching episode of Le Ragazze on Rai3, recounting her life and artistic path with clarity and wit – a woman who made creative freedom her mission.

With Adriana Asti, we lose one of the most passionate and charismatic witnesses of 20th-century Italian culture. But her voice, her artistry, and her elegance remain.

The Festival dei Due Mondi pays tribute to her with heartfelt remembrance and deep respect.