De Bortoli solitary in the audience and the former Greek prosecutor with his wife
Mario Monti, Ferruccio De Bortoli, Francesco Greco … stories of the rise and fall of men and women of power
How bad it is to have once been powerful and now not to be. First attention, flattery, invitations, salamons … Then, suddenly, cold, indifference, loneliness and the void around. It is not the person (and humanity) that one is that counts, but his professional role, his weight in society and in the hierarchy of power. It is not about relationships of friendship or respect, but opportunistic and convenience calculation.
There Before the Scala with its very particular audience and phenomenological microcosm, a infallible and merciless thermometer, a (sad) show, in the show. Every year among the tuxedos in the room we notice theabsence of someone, left at home uninvited, deleted with relentless and silent glaciality from the mailing lists of sponsors following retirement or fucking and consequent loss of power and role. The seats in the hall are counted and divided among the sponsors, the guests must bring value with their presence. Otherwise they are useless and must be left at home without mercy.
But then there are the diehards, those who remove their own fall and loss of power and role, are distressed by oblivion, they do not resign themselves to seeing the Prima in slippers and a bedroom jacket from the dining room. These, indomitable, magically succeed, by virtue of old ties that somehow and mildly resist a little longer, to get the longed-for invitation status symbol that pushes the personal and social trauma of exclusion and expulsion from the circle of those who matter, resulting in an inevitable contribution to the already looming depressive syndrome.
But it is not nice for these, former powerful, to see the emptiness around them: no one looks for them in the intervals, no one ranks them, they remain secluded amid quick nods of pragmatic greetings. After all, there is little time in the intervals of the Opera. And the rule of public relations imposes targeted, multiple but well-aimed contacts. With maximum operational returns, hopefully. Therefore, away from ex-powerful defenestrated.
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Thus we witness merciless scenes. They see themselves aloof and lonely ex powerful limp and played, that in the past plowed the room graceful and chest out, strong in their prestigious public functions and their fascinating and contagious charisma of power.
I talked about it three years ago with Francesco Saverio Borrelli, retired magistrate, the man who thirty years ago, as head of the Milan prosecutor’s office, had exterminated almost the entire ruling class of the first republic. He wandered alone with his wife among the VIPs of finance, like a plague at the main sponsor’s buffet Intesa SanPaolo after the Premiere (and I wrote about it here). I asked him how he lived in retirement, after so much activism in the toga. And he confided to me with a sardonic smile and the usual politeness (while his wife rightly strologized against the perfidy and ingratitude of the System): “Given my well-known passion for music, they appointed me president of the Conservatory of Gallarate, near Milan . I go there a couple of times a week, sign some papers and go home “. Sic transeat gloria mundi.
Like Borrelli, his successor at the helm of the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office Francesco Greco, a few days without a gown and retired. In the center of the room, alone with his wife. And for Mario Monti, in a corner of the foyer bar, chatting with his wife alone.
And for Ferruccio De Bortoli, already long-lived and powerful director of the Courier service, now the author of articles on economic sociology for the Monday insert, alone with the old bow tie in the back rows of the Scaliger temple.
It happens to the Macbeth, a story of the rise and fall of men and women of power. It’s a story from a thousand years ago, but not much has changed. As Andreotti said, power wears out those who don’t have it …
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