The conductor Beatrice Venezi has declared her sacking null and discriminatory, launching a legal challenge against the opera house that fired her before she ever raised a baton as its musical director.
Beatrice Venezi formally contested her dismissal as musical director of Venice’s La Fenice opera house on Wednesday. She wrote to the governing foundation to declare the decision “null, illegitimate, ineffective and discriminatory.” La Fenice Superintendent Nicola Colabianchi was unmoved, saying the house’s lawyers would respond and dismissing reports that Venezi might receive compensation.
What led to the dismissal
Venezi was appointed in September 2025 — controversially from the outset — to become La Fenice‘s youngest ever musical director and its first woman in the role, with a tenure due to begin this October and run until 2027. The appointment was met with sustained protests from the orchestra and staff, who alleged political favouritism given her well-documented ties to Premier Giorgia Meloni.
The final rupture came on 27 April, when La Fenice cancelled all future collaborations after Venezi gave an interview to Argentine newspaper La Nación in which she described the Italian music world as resistant to change and alleged that positions in the Venice orchestra were “practically passed from father to son.” Colabianchi, who had previously been an ally, said he had acted because of “repeated and serious public statements that are offensive and detrimental to the artistic and professional value of the Fondazione Teatro La Fenice and its Orchestra.”
The politics behind the appointment
Venezi’s links to the Meloni government are extensive and long-standing. She was named government musical advisor shortly after Meloni took office as Italy’s first woman prime minister in 2022. She has also been publicly praised by the premier on several occasions, and received an award from Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party. Her appointment at La Fenice was widely seen in the context of the government’s stated objective of dismantling what it describes as left-wing cultural hegemony in Italian institutions.
The 36-year-old Lucca-born conductor, daughter of a far-right militant and also known to television audiences for a shampoo advertisement, had never previously led a major opera house orchestra. Critics argued her conducting record was too slender for a role of La Fenice’s stature. Britain’s Daily Telegraph took a different view, arguing she had been the victim of sexism, misogyny, and reverse ageism.
Venezi herself had previously noted with wry irony that she had “benefited so much from patronage” that she worked “practically completely abroad.” She is currently principal guest conductor at the Buenos Aires opera house.
Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli, who had backed the original appointment, expressed “full confidence” in Colabianchi and expressed hope the decision would clear the air for the good of the opera house and the city. Meloni’s office denied a Corriere della Sera report that the premier had personally signed off on the sacking.
