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MUSIC: An uncertain future for Teatro dell’Opera
Political meddling and government budget cuts are major setbacks for Rome’s opera venue
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Director Robert Wilson’s production of “Aida” stirred controversy when it came to Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera in January. |
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In early April, Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera was placed under compulsory administration as a result of a ?5 million hole in its 2008 budget. However, as managing director Francesco Ernani pointed out, before that the theatre had come out in the black seven seasons in a row and the 2008 budget could have been rounded out with contributions from the city and the region, as well as by cost-saving measures in the theatre. But Ernani’s assurances were of little use; Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno, who was initially against placing the theatre under compulsory administration, then accepted an appointment by culture minister Sandro Bondi to head a temporary budget commission until July, which led to the dismissal of Ernani and the board of directors.
The first off-key note lies in the fact that, by law, a managing body cannot be substituted by a commissioner (in this case Alemanno) who was also president of the dissolved board of directors. To say nothing of the dismissal of artistic director Nicola Sani (composer, set designer, consultant, director and assistant to institutions, festivals and musical publications) and the nomination in his place of Nicola Colabianchi (composer, conductor and professor at the conservatory of music in Latina). An artistic director cannot be appointed without the approval of the board of directors, which was why Alemanno changed Colabianchi’s title into “temporary consultant to the commission for artistic direction”.
This state of affiars poses a serious dilemma: how will Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera get on without Ernani, whose experience includes the difficult direction of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino festival at the end of the 1990s? What music will be heard, what shows will be seen now that Sani has been dismissed? He had already outlined the 2009-2010 opera season, which featured “Idomeneo” to be conducted by Riccardo Muti and “Simon Boccanegra” with Korean conductor Myung-whun Chung, “Madame Butterfly”, “Peer Gynt” and “Parsifal” and invitations for directors Chen Shi-Zheng and Peter Sellars.
The current opera season has come under harsh criticism from the president of the city council’s commission for culture, Federico Mollicone, who described it as “unsuccessful, too experimental with too many niche productions.” Is this true?
To start with, “La Traviata” and “Pagliacci” by director Franco Zeffirelli guarantee a grand opera repertoire with one of the last great names in that tradition. Then there are the ever popular “Tosca” and “Carmen” appearing this summer at the Terme di Caracalla. Are these niche titles? Perhaps Debussy’s “Pelléas et Mélisande” could be considered experimental, a masterpiece of the same 19th-century repertoire as “Tosca”, which has not appeared in Rome for over 30 years?
It’s true that “Le grand macabre” by Ligeti, which was written in 1978 and made its first ever appearance in Rome in June, is not an easy opera. There was also the 17th-century “Iphigénie en Aulide” by Gluck. Last heard in Rome in 1954, most opera goers in Rome would not even have known of its existence had it not come courtesy of conductor Riccardo Muti. Then came the notorious “Aida” staged by Robert Wilson, which is modern, abstract and without embellishments, possibly upsetting the guardians of tradition. But Wilson is a director who works with the world’s most important musical institutions and his “Aida” appeared at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels and in London’s Covent Garden before coming to Rome, where it enjoyed large audiences in addition to a great many young people attracted by its freshness and modernity.
And the sell-out performances of the two world premièrs, “The Blue Planet” by Bosnian musician Goran Bregovic and Welsh film director Peter Greenaway and “Il re nudo” by Luca Lombardi with the Milanese rock band Elio delle Storie Tese – are those failures as well? Should we forget the many famous singers who are performing this season such as Fabio Armiliato, Marcelo Álvarez, Brian Asawa, Elina Garanãa, Martina Serafin and Daniela Dessì, not to mention such highly sought-after directors as Dmitrij Bertman, Robert Carsen and Alex Ollé (of Catalan theatre company La Fura dels Baus)?
Does all of this really fit the description of “unsuccessful, too experimental with too many niche productions”? In the light of political and ideological prejudice, perhaps so. But considered honestly and with intellectual objectivity the answer is absolutely not.
All of these features risk disappearing unless new managing and artistic directors are nominated; not necessarily Ernani and Sani, but at least people who possess the same requirements, qualifications and capabilities.
Rome’s opera season runs an additional risk all too common among artistic foundations today as a result of cuts to state funding for the performing arts. The Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro (9-20 August) has had to cancel one of its operas and the Teatro Comunale in Bologna has been forced to curtail two productions in its regular season, and still risks closing. Without funding, it is impossible to stage modern or classical operas, let alone invite the kind of names capable of guaranteeing high-quality productions and filling theatres. The first consequences of these cuts for Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera have fallen on its sister Teatro Nazionale, with cancellations and modifications to the venue’s dance programme.
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