'Ciao', Mama Chicho

The other day I went to the opera to see Il turco in Italia, a work by Rossini in which a Turkish prince travels to Italy to discover his pleasures, mainly women.. A piece about a love affair set in Italian fotonovelas from the 50s and 70s. This same week, Silvio Berlusconi, a character worthy of a photo novel and one of “Italian pleasures”, died.

I don't know if he would play the role of the Turk in this opera, with all the irony that this entails considering his political ideas on immigration, but I do know because of his aspirations and his vacuum cleaners, which he sold in the beginning, before becoming a millionaire.. A man who entered politics hating politicians, speaking of their uselessness.

Which brings me to the death of another compatriot, the Italian philosopher and writer Nuccio Ordine, author of the book The Usefulness of the Useless and recent Princess of Asturias Award.. In it he talks about that bombast called culture, which sadly seems dispensable to us, but which makes a difference, sustains us and shapes us, and which reminds me of politics, something apparently useless

I imagine both of them up there, if there is an afterlife, looking at their different options, heaven, hell and purgatory.. I don't know what line Mr. Ordine will have, but taking into account that Berlusconi considered himself “the Jesus Christ of politics”, I have no doubt that he, no. The opera ends with a happy ending, the Turk returns to his country and the lady he had conquered also returns with her husband.. An Italian ending, each one back where they belong, much to Berlusconi's liking, even though he was more of Mama Chicho than Rossini.