Lombardy Region cuts funding to entertainment: cleaver on the Teatro alla Scala and the Piccolo Teatro in Milan

The Lombardy Region has approved the cut in contributions for entertainment institutions. It approved it with resolution 7366 of the Regional Council of last November 21st.

This is the reduction of funding for 2022 to the detriment of entities, associations and participating foundations operating in the cultural field. Involved in the cuts are some of the most well-known Lombard theaters, such as the Teatro alla Scala in Milan which goes from a loan of 3,308,000 euros to 1,838,600, equal to -45%. Still remaining in the Milan area, – 55% of funds also for the Piccolo Teatro from 1,891,000 euros to 850,950. In addition to the Teatro alla Scala, the Associazione Centro Teatrale Bresciano was also hit by the cleaver, which went from 200,000 euros to 90,000, -55%, the Fondazione Teatro Grandi di Brescia, from 120,000 euros to 108,000 (-10%), the Academy of Arts and professions of the Teatro alla Scala show business, from 100,000 euros to 92,000 (-8%).

«These cuts are weighted differently from person to person, leaving many doubts about the criterion adopted», explain the trade unions CGIL, CISL, UIL, SLC Fistel Uilcom of Lombardy, who speak of «an authentic encirclement that sounds like a real attack on culture. “And it happens in a territory – add the unions – that of Milan and Lombardy, which for culture and live entertainment is considered an excellence, a source of pride at an international level”.

After the announcement of the cuts, the unions of La Scala launch an appeal to the institutions to rethink it, announcing that they are ready “for any form of protest”. Meanwhile, the Mayor of Milan Beppe Sala has announced that it will be difficult to avoid cuts in funding also for 2023 for the Teatro alla Scala itself and probably for the other cultural entities that benefit from the municipal contribution. “We consider these decisions to be profoundly wrong because they endanger the economic sustainability of the bodies involved and reinforce the suspicion that, for politics, culture is seen only as a cost and not instead as an investment for the country’s economy and its social utility”. The trade unions continue: “Culture can help recover the depth necessary to fight superficiality and ignorance, to build a more just and more beautiful world. For these reasons we ask the institutions to review these choices, otherwise we will be ready to evaluate any form of protest “.

For the Scala in Milan “we will do everything to try to find some residual resources, a problem which we will also have to discuss with the Municipality of Milan because it obviously refers to all public entities”, was the comment of the president of the Lombardy Region, Attilio Fontana.