The director of La Fenice in Venice, Fortunato Ortombina, 63, whose candidacy was pushed by the Meloni government, was appointed director of La Scala in Milan on Tuesday, announced the city’s mayor Giuseppe Sala after a board of directors.
The Italian Fortunato Ortombina, who since 2017 has directed the Venice Opera, one of the highlights of Italian cultural life, will succeed the Frenchman Dominique Meyer, 68, who has been in office for almost four years. Fortunato Ortombina thus marks his big return to La Scala, where he was from 2003 to 2007 coordinator of artistic direction. He was appointed artistic director of the Fenice in Venice in 2007 before taking charge ten years later.
For a year, however, the two men rubbed shoulders. Fortunato Ortombina will take up his functions from September 2024 and Dominique Meyer will retain them until August 2025, said Giuseppe Sala, chairman of the board of directors of La Scala. “We did everything for the good of La Scala, with dignity and correctness,” he commented.
Dominique Meyer arrived at the helm of La Scala in 2020, after having directed the Vienna Opera for ten years. The musical director of La Scala, Riccardo Chailly, 71, whose current mandate also expires in February 2025, has seen his functions extended until 2026. The succession at the head of La Scala, an establishment of “national interest”, had caused a stir, against a backdrop of the takeover of the public cultural service by the right-wing and far-right government of Giorgia Meloni.
Fortunato Ortombina was proposed as Dominique Meyer’s successor following a meeting at the beginning of March between the Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano and the mayor of Milan. His appointment was, however, delayed because several members of the board of directors had suggested at their last meeting convened on April 8 to extend the mandates of Dominique Meyer and Riccardo Chailly for one year. But the government vetoed it: “a mandate has a deadline, precisely to encourage rotation and renewal,” immediately replied the Undersecretary of Culture, Gianmarco Mazzi. Last May, the Meloni government set the age limit for directors of opera theaters at 70, thus effectively preventing a reappointment of the former director of the Vienna Opera who will reach it in August 2025.
The musicians of the Scala Orchestra had requested at the end of March in vain a two-year extension of Dominique Meyer’s contract, highlighting his “valuable artistic career”. A journey recognized by the Minister of Culture and the mayor of the city who praised, in a joint press release, “his admirable commitment and his total dedication to the service of La Scala which, under his leadership, has obtained extraordinary results, including understood from an organizational and financial point of view.”
Another French director, Stéphane Lissner, 71, head of the Naples Opera, was forced to leave his position last June due to the government decree, but he was able to return to his post after contesting it in justice. The nationalist government of Giorgia Meloni had hardly hidden its desire to see an Italian take charge of La Scala, after three foreign directors.
Appreciated by the government, Fortunato Ortombina had been criticized for having entrusted Alvise Casellati, son of the Minister of Institutional Reforms Elisabetta Casellati, with the direction of several operas and concerts at the Fenice. Gennaro Sangiuliano “honors me with his esteem, he expressed his gratitude for my work,” the new director said in mid-March in an interview with the newspaper Corriere della Sera. However, “I never sought support from anyone,” he assured.