The Italian communist philosopher Antonio Gramsci taught that for the revolution to succeed it should conquer the means of thought first rather than the means of production. Only if the dominant bourgeois culture is replaced by a communist counter culture will the working class come round to seeing the revolution as the commonsense tinga to do.

The appointment of a woman to lead such a prestigious institution should have been cause for rejoicing, especially for the left. Instead it has provoked an outbreak of operatic sound and fury

The appointment of a woman to lead such a prestigious institution should have been cause for rejoicing, especially for the left. Instead it has provoked an outbreak of operatic sound and fury

In Italy, as everywhere in the West, the left has been remarkably successful in achieving what Gramsci, a co-founder of the Italian communist party in 1921, called cultural hegemony. The Venice opera house – La Fenice – is the scene of one battle among many being fought by Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government to try and reverse the capture of the citadels of Italian culture by the ‘comunisti al caviale’ (caviar communists).

Last September, the foundation that manages the state-owned opera house, currently under right-wing control, appointed the young conductor Beatrice Venezi as its new musical director on a four-year contract to start next October.

The appointment of a woman to lead such a prestigious institution should have been cause for rejoicing, especially for the left. Instead it has provoked an outbreak of operatic sound and fury like that in Federico Fellini’s 1978 film Prova d’Orchestra which sees members of an orchestra refuse to obey their conductor in the name of the revolution and as a result everything reduced to rubble.

Venezi, who is only 35, makes no secret of her conservative views and prior to this........

© The Spectator