Opera di Roma in Receivership, Workers Strike

BOLOGNA -- What is now to become of Opera di Roma? After three months of dogged fight, the Fondazione has been beheaded by a decree from the national Minister for Culture Sandro Bondi, signed April 3. The board of governors has been dissolved, both General Manager Francesco Ernani and the freshly appointed Artistic Director Nicola Sani have been fired. For the next three months, Mayor Gianni Alemanno will oversee the company in receivership, with the ostensible mission of absorbing a projected deficit that he estimates at being between 8 and 11 million euros for 2009. The appointment of the mayor is unprecedented; such receivers are usually high executives of the Minister’s staff, but Alemanno volunteered his services. According to the Ministry, the actual figure is 9 million euros, while the ousted general manager claims he had already reduced it to 2.49 million euros as well as suggesting various measures to cut it down to zero (or near to zero). One may speculate that, by forcing out a highly experienced and popular manager, Mayor Alemanno is shooting himself in the foot. Unless, of course, he has the assurance that the national government will come to the house’s rescue at the last moment. [See Opera di Roma: The Plot Thickens.] In fact, top players in the political arena predict precisely that scenario, which also sees the Minister hand-picking Ernani’s successor. Former Minister for Culture (and now member of the shadow cabinet) Giovanna Melandri has declared that Berlusconi’s government “aims at starving cultural institutions in order to gain full control over them.” Both Provincia di Roma and Regione Lazio, two major institutional funders, revoked their contributions to the Fondazione, arguing that the process is unfair, illegal and bad for the organization. In his farewell speech to his staff, delivered the morning of April 4, Ernani could not conceal a sense of bitterness. Quoting the Austrian anti-Nazi poet Ingeborg Bachmann, he declared: “ ‘You may get killed also amidst times of peace,’ ” adding with tears in his eyes, “To the powers that be, I was a disturbance to be removed.” His comments were received with a standing ovation. Further, the unions have cried foul play and taken action; just last month, Alemanno declared that he would stop the audit procedure that would ultimately lead to Ernani’s removal. His sole aim, say the workers, was to avert the strikes scheduled during the run of Gluck’s “Iphigénie en Aulide” with Riccardo Muti conducting. As of Tuesday, the unions have declared a strike through the end of May, affecting the whole run of “Les Ballets Russes” and the new Franco Zeffirelli production of “Pagliacci.” The pundit director, an early supporter of Ernani’s, has not hesitated to express his dissatisfaction and has even threatened to withdraw his staging. “Alemanno is a good man,” said Zeffirelli, “but ill-advised and incompetent in matters operatic. The story deserves to be put in a novel; maybe I'll write one.” “The prestige of Italian-style opera making…is at stake,” he continued. “I say no, a thousand times no, to political conditioning of theaters.” Carla Fracci, the world-class dancer who is now director of the Opera di Roma’s school of ballet, called the story “ignoble” and said it “won’t end here.” The unions agree. In addition to the strikes, they are plotting ways to get their general manager back, both through legal channels, such as appealing to the TAR (Regional Adminstrative Court), and more publicly visible means -- not atypical of theater workers in this drama-loving country. Among other schemes, their leaders mentioned a protest march including a symbolic funeral and crucifixion in front of the Ministry for Culture. The Holy Week has just started and, here in the cradle of Roman Catholicism, this sort of mystery play is bound to have a deep emotional impact.