It’s arduous to gauge whether or not the drama at present taking part in out behind the scenes on the San Carlo Opera Home in Naples will finish as “opera seria” (critical) or an “opera buffa” (comedy).
Italy’s oldest opera home at present has two revered figures, every of whom believes he’s its rightful normal director after a convoluted dispute that critics say has solid the theater, and Italy, in an unflattering mild.
It has all the weather of excessive drama — battle, rigidity, even perhaps vendetta — and is taking part in out like a farce, or, within the phrases of some Italian information shops, “un pasticcio”: a multitude.
A fast plot synopsis:
Act I. In Might, Italy’s authorities passed a law that mentioned normal administrators of the nation’s 13 state-run opera theaters couldn’t serve past their 70th birthday. That instantly terminated the contract of Stéphane Lissner, who had turned 70 in January, halfway via his time period as the final director of the San Carlo.
He was the one normal director instantly affected by the regulation, and there was open hypothesis within the information media that the regulation, which was handed as an pressing measure, had been drafted to particularly single him out.
The French-born Lissner, who ran La Scala in Milan for a decade and the Paris Opera for six years, warned the board of the theater that he would problem his termination.
Act II. In August, the theater employed Carlo Fuortes, 64, as a substitute, not lengthy after he resigned because the chief govt of Italy’s nationwide broadcaster, RAI.
Fuortes is an skilled supervisor who was praised for turning across the Rome Opera throughout a stint there as normal director from 2013 to 2021. Italian information shops broadly reported that the hard-right authorities of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni needed to exchange Fuortes within the broadcast place with its personal nominee. It was mentioned that the San Carlo was meant to be a comfort prize for Fuortes, who started there on Sept. 1.
Act III. On Sept. 12, a labor court docket reinstated Lissner, after his attorneys challenged the grounds for his dismissal. The tradition ministry instructed the theater board to reinstate him, which it did on Monday night, in response to his lawyer. (The board declined repeated requests for remark.) Lissner is anticipated to return to Naples from Paris, the place he has been since June, as quickly as this week. However the board has additionally introduced it will file enchantment the court docket’s choice.
What occurs in Act IV stays to be seen. A assessment panel inside the identical labor court docket will now look at the choice to reinstate Lissner, who’s once more legally the theater’s normal director. His lawyer, Pietro Fioruzzi, identified the “irony” that his shopper had been reinstated by the identical theater board that was interesting that call.
“What occurred is definitely undeserving of the historical past of Naples and the historical past of the San Carlo,” mentioned Riccardo Realfonzo, an economics professor who sits on the board.
Realfonzo had contested a number of administration choices on the theater, together with some hirings and Lissner’s remuneration, which Realfonzo mentioned was too excessive. He has additionally refused to log out on the theater’s final two budgets, as a result of they weren’t balanced, he mentioned.
As a consultant of a regional authorities that funds the theater, he was involved in regards to the potential monetary fallout within the occasion that the theater needed to find yourself paying each normal administrators, or paying off one among them. He protested by not attending conferences.
Alberto Mattioli, an opera critic who simply revealed a book about Italy’s opera homes and their historical past, mentioned the swiftly handed regulation that ended Lissner’s run was additionally in step with Italy’s hard-right nationalist authorities drive to “put Italians first” on the high of the nation’s cultural establishments, stating that the individuals it initially affected each occurred to be French.
Dominique Meyer, who runs La Scala and can also be from France, must go away in 2025 when he turns 70. Officers on the Milan theater mentioned authorized specialists had been inspecting the brand new regulation to find out whether or not it will apply at La Scala, which is ruled by a distinct statute than different opera theaters.
Mattioli mentioned that by utilizing the San Carlo as a pawn in political deal-making the federal government had diminished the standing of the theater, one among Italy’s most prestigious establishments. “The whole lot that’s occurred confirms that Italy is a extremely incomprehensible nation,” Mattioli mentioned.
Fuortes has not spoken publicly in regards to the state of affairs and his lawyer declined to remark. His standing on the theater after Lissner’s reinstatement is unclear, however he has threatened authorized repercussions if he’s dismissed, in response to a letter from his lawyer to the San Carlo board that was shared with The New York Occasions by a 3rd celebration.
It may take weeks for the assessment panel to listen to the enchantment. Within the meantime, the drama is for certain to proceed.
