Abstract

This paper deals with the halfway results of a major reform passed in 2013, and then amended in the next years, dealing with the 14 Italian Opera Foundations and, in particular with 8 of them needing special measures because of their economic crisis. The budget analysis of the year 2016 performed by the Court of Accounts shows encouraging improvement of the overall situation, as for the first time all the Foundations closed with an operating profit. But structural difficulties are still left in the financial frame (high debts and low or negative equity). Altogether the indebtedness of the 14 Foundations attain the level of 431 million euro, while the global equity is 406 million euro. The reform path at its end (closing of the financial statement of the Foundations for the year 2018) is going to ascertain which Foundation has solid financial structure, which one is on its way to resume economic efficiency, which one is apparently showing no sustainable economic prospects. Furthermore the paper sketches possible measures to strengthen the perspective of the Italian Opera, one of the most important and worldwide celebrated cultural heritage of the country.