Always caustic, Franco Zeffirelli went on the offensive at the Florence press conference for his production of Pagliacci @ Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. As soon as he was asked, what should the government do to help out Italian opera houses during this financial crisis?, Zeffirelli said:
Maybe the Frengo Plan would work wonders, but given that Italian opera houses at the moment receive from the government a coll euro 199,566,815 (yes, that's almost 200 million euros, ie more than 255 million dollars) we're talking about a LOT of tax cutting here.