From zero to 190 thousand euros: the Boccherini Institute, after having filed a lawsuit against the Committee for Puccini Celebrations and having turned first to the TAR and then to the Court of Auditors to denounce the alleged opacity and the alleged conflict of interest in the management of the Committee itself , saw his reasons recognised.
In fact, the Committee chaired by Maestro Umberto Veronesi, in one of its last meetings, decided, following the indication of an ad hoc technical commission, to remodulate the contributions available to the bodies that had requested money for the protection of Puccini’s places.
In March last year, and not without heavy controversy and subsequent judicial consequences, the Boccherini Institute participated in the tender requesting over 330 thousand euros for the restoration and recovery of two rooms of the Conservatory linked to the memory of Puccini. For months, while the contributions to other bodies had been made known, nothing more was heard of that request and the same leaders of the Institute, at the beginning of 2024, denounced during a press conference that they did not know what the end of it was. made their request nor, much less, the reasons that had led to the now evident, but not communicated, rejection.
Last May Boccherini turned to the TAR (last May) to ask for the annulment of the resolution and subsequently (last September) also to the Court of Auditors, while the Committee had in any case made it known that approximately 600 thousand euros of the 3.3 millions in total for this type of intervention were not committed and were awaiting the TAR’s ruling scheduled for November 28th.
In August, however, the Celebrations Committee had independently taken steps to revoke the same public notice for the collection of project proposals relating to the protection of Puccini’s places, published in February 2023, thus restarting the evaluation procedure. For the latter, a commission was reappointed which includes Gabriele Dotto, Umberto Sereni (who later resigned and Claudio Buja took over) and Barbara Zanieri. Precisely in light of these revaluations, contributions have also been included for the 190 thousand euros for the Boccherini Institute which was initially, as mentioned, totally excluded. All things considered, 390,450 euros now go to the Puccini Festival, 85 thousand to the Teatro del Giglio, 65 thousand to the Lucchesi nel Mondo, 79 thousand to the Puccini Museum, 175 thousand to the Simonetta Puccini Foundation, 34 thousand to the Municipality of Pescaglia, 80 thousand to the Villino di Viareggio del Maestro, 25 thousand to the Parish of Mutigliano, 190 thousand to the Boccherini Institute, 53 thousand to the Milan Conservatory and 10 thousand to the Teatro di Bagni di Lucca. Now, it remains to be seen whether the judicial consequences will end.
