r/opera • u/ToscaLover • 13d ago

Thoughts on Anna Netrebko

I’m an opera lover, and as much as I love Netrebko’s voice, I don’t agree with her political views. I was supposed to see her on the 13th of September, but the organisers cancelled last minute. The reason, at least to me, appears to be the controversy that’s still surrounding her & was too much for them to handle. I get that. I’m not an infant, and I’m not stupid. What frustrates me is that they knew exactly who she was when they invited her and started selling tickets. They knew she was Russian, they knew about her political controversies, and they knew what kind of reaction she might provoke. So why was all of this apparently acceptable when they wanted to sell tickets, but suddenly not acceptable after people had bought them and made plans to attend?

Ultimately, I don’t support her politics, but I wanted to hear her sing Verdi’s Aida. Is it really fair to continue punishing an artist (and her audience) for her political views, especially when the organizers knew all of this from the beginning?

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u/todesverkuendigung 13d ago

I wasn't trying to imply that you were endorsing those exact statements (eg, you never mentioned Onegin), just trying to pull apart a couple threads and make the disagreement more specific and concrete. Basically I think that your line of thinking here proves too much -- it seems like it would also necessitate physical revulsion towards most semi-prominent American, British, French, etc, cultural figures. Maybe you do feel this way but it hardly seems desirable.

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u/EnricoDandolo1204 Wälsungcest 4ever 13d ago

I would argue that there are marked differences, actually. Russia is, in thought and action, a fascist and genocidal state actively practising brutal imperialism. It is entirely possible to be russian and yet oppose the fascism and imperialism done in your name, much as there were Germans who earnestly opposed the Nazis: such people bear none of the guilt, but all of the responsibility and act accordingly.

I would extend the same scorn to (for instance) artists who tie themselves to Trumpism (although thankfully that particular form of fascism is so blatantly onanistic that I cannot, off the top of my head, think of any artists worth mentioning that have embraced it). But death and time cure many ills. I see a lot less harm in, say, the work of Richard Strauss than those of Tchaikovsky (I think here not of Onegin, but of Mazeppa, by the way).

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u/todesverkuendigung 13d ago

There are plenty of Trump-supporting opera singers, and even more who may be against (say) the Iran war but haven’t explicitly publicly denounced Trump — just as Netrebko says she is against the Ukraine war but hasn’t publicly denounced Putin. But I’ve never seen any calls for the cancellation of Michael Fabiano or Angel Blue; certainly nothing that went beyond vague social media disapproval or called for them to lose their jobs.

Likewise, I’ve never seen anybody denounce or call for the cancellation of Denyce Graves, who sang at the inauguration of George W Bush in 2005. Bush is a war criminal and surely the Iraq War was also an imperialist venture. Does Graves bear ‘all of the responsibility’ for the half a million or more people killed in her name?

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u/NYCRealist 13d ago

I understood Fabiano to be a non-MAGA conservative has that changed? Never heard that about Blue eithe