‘I would love to continue’: Italian government throws out foreign opera directors

Since Giorgia Meloni took power, her government has been working on regain control over Italian cultural institutions from foreign directors.

Museums and galleries have already come under attack: German-born Eike Schmidt left the Uffizi in Florence, and British-Canadian director James Bradburne resigned from his job at the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.

Now, non-Italian opera and theatre directors are being removed from their posts, with the age limit set at 70.

Italianization of Italian opera houses

Earlier this year, the general director of Milan’s famed Teatro alla Scala gave a bittersweet farewell to the theatre during the presentation of its 2024-25 season, saying: “I would have loved to have continued.”

Italy’s far-right government has limited Dominique Meyer to a single term as it seeks to restore Italy’s historic cultural institutions. Meyer, a Frenchman, was the third foreigner in a row to run Italy’s major opera house.

The new general director of the theatre is Fortunato Ortombina, who came from the Venetian theatre La Fenice and will work alongside Meyer for the first few months.

Meyer’s last gala premiere will be Verdi’s “La forza del destino,” starring Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann, on December 7.

The new season will also see the world premiere of In the Name of the Rose, a new opera by Francesco Filidea based on the novel by Umberto Eco, commissioned by La Scala and the Paris Opera. It will be performed in Italian in Milan and Genoa, and in French in Paris.

“The period necessary to create a new opera is longer than the term of office of a theatre director,” Meyer told a news conference, adding significantly: “A little stability wouldn’t hurt.”

Meyer has been invited to remain in office until August 2025, when he turns 70, under a new rule established by the Meloni government.

Foreign opera director goes to court to keep job

Last year, the French director of the Naples Opera House Teatro di San Carlo, Stéphane Lissner, was also told that his time was up.

In January 2023, he turned 70 and was supposed to leave his position in June. However, a Naples court ruled against this order and Lissner was reinstated as director.

Critics of Meloni’s age restriction have dubbed it the “Fuortes decree”, saying its hidden agenda was to oust the head of national television station RAI, Carlo Fuortes, who announced his resignation in May last year.

In a letter to the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the former RAI chief stated that he refused to accept the changes in editorial line and programming that the Meloni government was trying to impose, changes that he “does not consider to be in the interests of RAI”.