It could be curtains for Italian opera

VENUES across the country warn spending cuts may destroy them.

ON stage at Rome's Teatro dell'Opera, Madama Butterfly (soprano Raffaella Angeletti) is gazing into the eyes of her new American husband, Lieutenant Pinkerton (Marco Berti), unaware that the man pledging undying love in the duet Viene la sera is about to leave her pregnant and sail away.

The curtain falls to rapturous applause for the cast and Daniel Oren, the conductor, from a packed house. But, offstage, a drama of emotion and betrayal as momentous as anything dreamed up by Puccini is engulfing Italian opera houses: an emergency decree imposing spending cuts that opera lovers say could bring down the curtain permanently.

Last Tuesday the Rome stage remained dark as the premiere of Butterfly was cancelled in one of the many protest strikes that have hit Italian operas and concerts. Yesterday, the directors of all 14 opera houses were holding a crunch meeting with Sandro Bondi, the Culture Minister, in a last effort to stave off the cuts.

The centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi insists that the cuts, part of a package of austerity measures, are necessary not only to help Italy to survive the euro crisis but to wean opera houses off their multimillion-euro state subsidy and get rid of "absurd anomalies" such as payments to chorus members for having to sing in a foreign language or hold a sword.

Something must be done, ministers say, with opera houses running huge losses and being crippled by industrial action. "The love that I hold for our culture is exactly why I want to save our opera houses," Bondi says. But for performers and legions of opera lovers, what is at stake is an art form that is a symbol of Italy throughout the world.

"I voted for the Centre-Right, but now I wouldn't know who to vote for," says Barbara Agostinelli, a violinist at the Rome Opera. "The figures going around about how much we earn are wildly inflated and claims that we only work a 16-hour week are absurd. We put in at least six hours a day."

Behind her on Piazza Beniamino Gigli, outside the opera house, a banner reads: "Bondi, minister of what culture?" Many opera-goers heading into the theatre have yellow ribbons on their lapels, a symbol of opposition to the cuts.

The "Bondi decree" would cut the earnings of Italy's 5500 opera musicians, stagehands and chorus members and place a moratorium on hiring new staff.

It would scrap the present system under which opera staff receive the same basic pay but can then negotiate secondary contracts to boost their salaries by up to a quarter.

The government says that 70 per cent of state funding for opera goes on wages, and that it's time opera houses streamlined wasteful practices and attracted more private sponsorship.

Opera eats up nearly half the entire state budget for the arts.

But the powerful music unions have called wildcat strikes that have forced the cancellation of performances at opera houses in Rome, Milan, Venice, Florence, Bologna, Trieste and Turin.

Performances are routinely prefaced with announcements -- to applause from the audience -- denouncing the murder of opera.

The malaise goes far beyond the latest round of cuts. Opera remains part of Italy's DNA but many of the country's brightest and best, from conductors Claudio Abbado at Lucerne to Nicola Luisotti at the San Francisco Opera, do much of their work abroad. And there are few innovative directors to match the best of those working in the US or elsewhere in Europe.

In his office in the Rome Opera, its director, Catello De Martino, looks glum. "There is nothing sadder than coming into a silent and empty theatre," he says. "A strike is a sign of failure." The unions need to be "less entrenched, so we can find solutions together".

He inherited a E10 million ($14.9m) deficit when he took over last year and admits that Italy's opera houses are still stuck in a "mindset of state support".

But the Rome opera house is actively seeking new sponsors,De Martino says. "In the past, firms have promised funds but not provided them, even though we printed their logos in the programs."

A former executive at energy company ENI, De Martino is negotiating co-production agreements with other opera houses to cut costs, including Barcelona, Paris, Sofia and the Metropolitan in New York.

La Scala's chief guest conductor Daniel Barenboim says the Bondi decree damages not only Italy's musical heritage but also La Scala's recent progress towards being more cost effective.

"It is a very negative signal for Italy, speaking internationally, to make decisions that can have a negative impact on the musical life of the country," he says.

La Scala has decreased its dependence on state funds during the past five years.

Now 60 per cent of its E115m annual budget comes from ticket sales and private donations and only 40 per cent from public funds.

Presenting La Scala's new season last weekend, Stephane Lissner, its director, said he could not accept a decree "which penalises a theatre and interferes with its capacity to manage itself".

He believes La Scala should be excluded from it altogether.

In Rome, De Martino remains optimistic. "We have a wonderful orchestra and chorus, and in December Riccardo Muti arrives as our musical director." The Rome Opera is to increase its number of productions, and is staging Aida and Rigoletto in the open air this summer at the Baths of Caracalla.

At Butterfly in Rome the audience was full of young Italians enchanted by Aldo Rossi's imaginative set. Tours of the opera house are taken by 7000 schoolchildren a week.

At La Scala, which has launched an under-30s club, 90,000 Milanese in their 20s take advantage of a 30 per cent discount to see the 280 opera, ballet or concert performances La Scala stages each year. And while a La Scala premiere is an occasion for bejewelled high society to show off, the final dress rehearsal is open only to the young, with tickets at E10 each.

"When the opera house doors open you can see and hear how tremendously enthusiastic young people are," De Martino says. "The next thing is to give musical education in Italian schools higher priority. At the moment, frankly, it is marginal."

The Times