The music stops when Russian stars become cultural pariahs

For three decades, he was one of the most sought-after conductors in the world, performing at the best concert halls from London to Tokyo. Six days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Valery Gergiev has gone from being an international celebrity to a pariah of the classical world.

The 68-year-old maestro was fired as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic on Tuesday. Dieter Reiter, the mayor of Munich, said in a statement that he had asked the Russian maestro to “clearly and unequivocally distance himself from Putin’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine.”

But Gergiev, a Putin supporter who publicly backed Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, declined to respond to Reuters’ request.

He is on a growing list of Russian stars who are proving to be the new goal of the campaign to isolate Moscow, which is no longer limited to economics, finance or military aid.

Many face cancellation and suspension in response to their failure to distance themselves from Moscow’s military aggression, the largest ground invasion since World War II.

Gergiev, director general of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, was also forced to cancel the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland and cancel a performance at Milan’s La Scala.

“Being a musician does not release you from being a citizen, from taking responsibility,” Russian-German pianist Igor Levitt commented on his Instagram account, adding the hashtag #StandWithUkraine.

Meanwhile, in the world of sports, the Russian invasion has forced the industry to abandon its self-proclaimed political neutrality.

The International Olympic Committee, which chairs the Olympic Games, has recommended that Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials be barred from participating in international events, saying many Ukrainians trapped in the war could not participate.

FIFA, which described the sport as a “vector of peace and hope”, initially opposed pressure to ban Russia. But on Monday, the governing body of world football agreed with UEFA, its equivalent at European level, to expel Russian teams from their competitions.

Russia’s Football Union has threatened to sue FIFA and UEFA.

Now removed from the Europa League, Spartak Moscow say the decision undermines the sport’s higher purpose. “We believe that sport, even in the most difficult times, should aim to build bridges, not burn them,” the team said.

Some criticized the wave of shame. “Gergiev is not responsible for Putin’s horrific decisions,” tweeted political analyst Hisham A. Helier. “Moreover, he will continue to have a family in Russia that will face repression if he, as a public figure, condemns Putin. We cannot (rightly) condemn Putin as a dictator and then demand this kind of public dissent.

But efforts to avoid Russia in the arts are accelerating rapidly. In France, the Cannes Film Festival said on Tuesday it would ban official Russian delegations from attending its 2022 event unless the conflict in Ukraine ends “in a way acceptable to the Ukrainian people.”

The New York Metropolitan Opera, North America’s largest classical music organization, has canceled a series of performances.

“We can no longer communicate with artists or institutions that support Putin or are supported by him,” Met CEO Peter Gelb said in a video statement. “Not until the engagement and the murder are terminated, order is restored and restitution is carried out.

Still, several star performers stand by Putin – or at least don’t want to stand up to him.

Gergiev, despite the repeal, did not comment on the invasion.

Russian opera soprano star Anna Netrebko canceled her upcoming performance at La Scala shortly after Gergiev was removed. Netrebko, who is also an Austrian citizen, celebrated her birthday in the Kremlin last year. She backed Putin in his 2012 re-election campaign.

On Saturday, Netrebko wrote that he was “an opponent of this war” but that he was “not a political figure”. She criticized the idea of ​​using culture as a political tool: “It is not right to force artists or any public figure to express their political opinions and the public and condemn their homeland.

In response, popular German satirist Jan Böhmerman wrote on Twitter: “Nothing is apolitical, never and definitely not art.

Netrebko and Gergiev used their cultural fame in the past to highlight Putin’s geopolitical offensives. In 2014, she was photographed next to pro-Russian separatist leader Oleg Tsarev holding a separatist flag.

After the 2008 war in Georgia, Gergiev conducted a special concert in South Ossetia, a breakaway Georgian region supported as an independent state by Putin.

The performance of Swan Lake at the ballets in St. Petersburg and Moscow in Dublin was also canceled. The London Coliseum has announced that it has canceled the Icons of Russian Ballet gala concert, which was to include members of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Ballets.

In Paris, critics called for the Louis Vuitton Foundation’s blockbuster exhibition of French and Russian paintings collected by wealthy 19th-century industrialists, the Mozorov brothers, to be closed in solidarity with Ukraine. Some called for the works to be confiscated.

Moving the show to France, with more than 1 million visitors, was a political feat for billionaire Bernard Arnault, who owns luxury goods group LVMH, and for Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin, who hailed it as a sign of friendship. LVMH declined to comment.

The loss of such performances and exhibitions is a financial blow to cultural sites, especially two years after the pandemic.

According to German media, for example, some tickets for Netrebko’s performance at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg cost as much as 440 euros this week.

On Tuesday, the concert was postponed to September after Netrebko announced he was suspending his performances. “It’s not the right time for me to perform and make music,” she said.

Additional reports by Eleni Varvitsioti, Dan Dombey, Joe Miller, Leila Abboud, Samuel Agini and Sam Jones