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Features

Italy’s in terminal decline, and no one has the guts to stop it

Everything that’s wrong with France is worse here

25 October 2014

9:00 AM

25 October 2014

9:00 AM

Rome

 

The Rome Opera House sacked its entire orchestra and chorus the other day. Financed and managed by the state, and therefore crippled by debt, the opera house — like so much else in Italy — had been a jobs-for-life trade union fiefdom. Its honorary director, Riccardo Muti, became so fed up after dealing with six years of work-to-rule surrealism that he resigned.

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