A court theater. On the enchanting terrace at the foot of Villa Rufolo, 340 meters above the sea level, there would be only a Sardanapalesco royal stage if the Kafkaesque troubles that, in the past few hours, have induced Antonio Scurati, academic and writer of undisputed value, correspond to the truth. to leave the leadership of the “Ravello Foundation”. An unworthy spectacle, as never before seen at the glorious “Ravello Festival”, which boasts a 69-year history. If it were an opera, it would be an unusual cross between farce and that Musikdrama so dear to the inspirer of the suggestive “divine” kermesse, the German composer Richard Wagner. The father of “L’anello del Nibelungo”, the lay patron of the people of Ravello, said that “where the power of words stops, the music begins”.
Where the power does not stop, however, the music disappears. And the words of the now former president strike more than a thunderous Tristan Akkord: “The founding members do not respect intellectual freedom and ignore the values of culture.” Hence the step backwards, the “resignation as a man of culture and, above all, as a free man”. A few hours from the Edict of via Porto, seat of the Salerno Civil Engineering offices, a set of soliloquies in streaming: the Deluchian bubble on indications that must be respected, necessary coincidences of objectives, presumed conflicts of interest and holidays at the expense of the Region . In the middle, unwelcome guests. Saviano, Speranza: profiles hated by the “De Luca Imperatore”, the title of a column in the Strip that brought the “sheriff” to the fore. And the creator of “Gomorra” confirmed the veto. It is the oratory pitch: “The ball is mine, I decide”. Soccer shogun, with the ball under his arm and the ban list in his hand. Disturbing shadows on the Festival are lengthening, if what they say is true: it decides politics, juggling along the fine line that demarcates the verbs “finance” and “manage”. Culture immolated on the altar of those who govern. Instrumentum reigns in the hands of enlightened sovereigns, fine connoisseurs of objectives and conditions, good and bad, necessity and futility.
Politics decides from above, capable of demarcating yin and yang. And politics, like the heart, has its reasons that reason does not know. The Mibact, to remember one, set up the committee for the centenary of Enrico Caruso, a little Neapolitan, a little Sorrentine, “forgetting” the municipalities of Naples and Sorrento, the Campania Region and the “San Carlo” Theater. How to celebrate San Gennaro in Predoi. But who governs knows: Alexander the Great, Augustus, the Medici, the MinCulPop that Scurati, author of a monumental trilogy on Mussolini, knows well. Reviewing Moliere’s Tartuffe, Cesare Garboli, an enlightened theater critic, wrote that «when power does not arise from privilege but from frustration, it needs occult consents and untouchable opinions to exist. Three centuries ago he needed religion; today it cannot do without culture ”. And the “Foundation” that saw the light in 2002, inheriting the Festival (and the management of Villa Rufolo) from the (formerly) Provincial Tourism Authority (now more regionalized than ever), today cannot do without the Region, the ” the majority shareholder”. Nineteen years ago there was also the “Monte Paschi di Siena”: it was the cashier of the “Foundation”, also made up of Palazzo Santa Lucia, the Province of Salerno and the Municipality of Ravello. Then the bank failed, the state emptied the provinces: only rubble remains of Palazzo Sant’Agostino. And the Region and the Municipality remain. The giant and the little girl.
Who finances commands. He chooses, like Wagner’s Valkyrie. It seems that the German composer was in Ravello just over half an hour. Francesco Maria Perrotta, the first president appointed in the heart of the stormy spring, stayed there for a day. Officialized by the Foundation, disavowed by the Region, who wanted Scurati. And now he doesn’t want it anymore. He just wants his ball back. The privileged place in the court theater. The box of the politiker, the politician, the one that Wagner did not like at all.