“Since she did not comply with the terms of ‘Meet’ to withdraw its official support for Vladimir Putin who is waging war in Ukraine, she withdrew from her upcoming concerts at ‘Meet’ in Puccini’s Turandot in April and May 2022,” the house said in a statement. ‘Don Carlos’ to Verdi next season.” The “Metropolitan” house indicated that Netrebko will be replaced by the Ukrainian opera Lyudmila Monasterska in the opera “Turandot”.
The director of the American house, Peter Gelb, described the withdrawal of the Russian soprano as “a great artistic loss for the ‘dead’ and the opera,” saying that “Anna is one of the greatest singers in the history of ‘dead’, but Putin’s killing of innocent victims did not leave us any solution.” “It is difficult to imagine a scenario that would see Anna return to ‘Dead’,” he explained in an email to Agence France-Presse.
And the famous soprano announced last Tuesday in a statement that it would withdraw from artistic performances “until further notice”, without providing additional explanations.
On Wednesday, Netrebko was scheduled to perform at the Elbe Philharmonic House in Hamburg, northern Germany, but the concert was postponed until next September. The soprano was also scheduled to appear this March on the stage of “La Scala” in Milan and then in Zurich.
This comes at a time when pressure is increasing on Russian artists to distance themselves from Putin, under the threat of being ostracized in the West and excluded from his theaters and cultural and artistic activities.
The world of classical music was shaken earlier this week when the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra announced the dismissal of the famous conductor, Valery Gergiev, who is known for his closeness to the Kremlin.
