Anna Netrebko is getting antsy

Anna Netrebko is getting antsy

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norman lebrecht

April 23, 2020

The diva, in her latest Instagram message:

I think it’s time to raise questions??? … sports, art, music- what is happening with us and who is responsible for all this mess?!!?? …Я думаю, настало время задавать вопросы….?? Спортсмены, музыканты, актёры… что с нами будет? И кто в ответе за этот бред?!?

Who, indeed?

 

Comments

  • Winnie the Poo says:

    Who’s responsible? The China Communist Party is to blame for lying and covering up the epidemic and intimidating whistle-blowers to silence at a time when it was containable. The WHO did China’s bidding and underestimated the seriousness of the situation and lied to the world.

    • hsy says:

      Many novel viruses are discovered every year. Most of them do not develop into a pandemic. You expect Chinese to have perfect information about the potential impact of this virus when it was just discovered, yet say nothing of the inept responses from leaders of several countries when they should have known much better, two months after the initial outbreak. Why would you expect the Chinese government to be much more transparent than, say, the US government, when Americans intimidated their own whistle-blowers such as Dr. Helen Chu?

      “Later that day, the investigators and Seattle health officials gathered with representatives of the C.D.C. and the F.D.A. to discuss what happened. The message from the federal government was blunt. “What they said on that phone call very clearly was cease and desist to Helen Chu,” Dr. Lindquist remembered. “Stop testing.””

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-delays.html

      China notified WHO of the disease on Dec. 31 last year. WHO declared the disease as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on Jan. 30. China instituted stay-at-home order for a broad area on Jan. 23. This is what the Director for Human Rights Watch had to say about the decision: https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/1220851193485893637

      With mindset like this what is happening right now is entirely expected.

      • twocentsnotwumao says:

        Another Wumao troll deliberately spreading propaganda.

        https://www.ft.com/content/3da73290-5067-11ea-8841-482eed0038b1

        “Chinese president Xi Jinping issued orders to contain the deadly coronavirus outbreak almost two weeks earlier than previously thought, according to an account that appears to contradict the narrative that local officials were to blame for allowing the epidemic to spiral.

        The official Communist party magazine Qiushi’s account over the weekend says Mr Xi met the party’s politburo standing committee, China’s most powerful decision making body, and gave instructions on the virus response on January 7, 13 days before the public was warned about the outbreak’s severity.”

        ______________
        https://www.voanews.com/science-health/coronavirus-outbreak/fact-check-chinas-official-coronavirus-timeline-starts-out:

        The government’s COVID19 timeline begins with a claim that the first cases of “pneumonia of unknown cause” were detected in the city of Wuhan in “late December 2019.”

        That is false.

        Scientific reports have said the first cases of what turned out to be the novel coronavirus behind the disease COVID-19 were detected weeks earlier.

        One study conducted by a group of China’s top scientists and dated Feb. 21 concluded that the “early population expansion of SARS-CoV-2” (the name for the novel coronavirus first identified in Wuhan) was detected on Dec. 8 or earlier.

        The study stated: “The crowded (Huanan Wholesale Seafood) market (‘wet market’ in Wuhan) boosted SARS-CoV-2 rapid circulations in the market and spread it to the whole city in early December 2019.”

        The study raised the prospect of human-to-human spread, although without specifying the means of transmission.

        “Tracing back to the first identified COVID-19 patient on 1 December, SARS-CoV-2 has been circulated in humans for more than two months. However, it is still unclear whether the Hua Nan market was the birthplace of the virus, and how it has been transmitted and spread subsequently,” the team wrote.

        The Chinese authorities on Dec. 31 HAD INITIALLY SAID THERE WAS NO “OBVIOUS PERSON-TO-PERSON TRANSMISSION.”

        • hsy says:

          I find it ironic that you would accuse me of being a propagandist, yet go on to quote Voice of America, the US state media that was banned in the US until 2013 due to Smith–Mundt Act, because the Congress (correctly) determined that it is propaganda manufactured by the State Department and the American people should be shielded from such untruth. Too bad in 2012 the Congress no longer deemed such protection of American people necessary.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act

          Two additional comments:

          1. That the Chinese government was aware of the virus causing problems on Jan. 7 does not indicate they were aware how infectious the disease is (its R0 value), how long the incubation period is, or what the case fatality rate of the disease might be. Without such knowledge it was impossible to make informed decision about the response to the outbreak.

          2. To confirm human-to-human transmission you need to do extensive contact tracing. In order to do reliable contact tracing you need test kits for the virus. The first test kit was produced on Jan. 11 and it did not went into mass production until the end of January. On Dec. 31, when there was no more than 30 suspected cases, China said “no obvious human-to-human transmission”, which is not “human-to-human transmission is impossible”.

          • Down Under says:

            Don’t even try to argue with Hsy. It’s like arguing against a holocaust denier or climate change denier. Waste of time. The China Communist Party will get its comeuppance for causing chaos and misery on the world.

      • Ishmael says:

        The NYT is clearly silly, tabloid propaganda as are MSNBC, LA Times, WAPO, etc.

        Take what happened on February 27 in CA. Nancy Pelosi went around totally unprotected in Chinatown to drum up tourism in congested streets since she was certain there was no danger of COVID-19.

        She’s fine and has been showing off the big ice cream stash in her walled-off palace.

        She’s still not wearing a mask and burning tons of carbon to jet back and forth to WA.

        That’s what people SEE and why those like her and the media are taken for what they truly are…unreliable, rich narcissists undeserving of any attention.

        • Bsc says:

          Are you one of the Trumputin clowns now also trying to defeat quarantine with more astroturfing spammed by the gun lobby, and supported by the Repugs? Don’t like that question? That is the level of thought you mirror in your own propaganda post here.

          • Edgar Fox says:

            Enjoy President Trump’s second term darling!

            Your lack of confidence in your own party’s intellectual and leadership prowess is clear since you can’t trumpet any of their recent achievements.

            Fortunately your dwindling group has decided to #ResistTrumpsStimulus and will be REFUSING the money Trump made possible for so many legal US citizens. The checks even bear his name and you can’t accept that.

            Of course you’re also donating the extra $600/week FED support atop of your unemployment check as Trump made that happen too.

            BRAVA and thank you for driving more voters away from ‘the blues’!!

        • Sue Sonata Form says:

          Yes, I saw that segment where “Tanty” Pelosi bragged about her ice cream treats – right about the time 20 million Americans were registering as unemployed.

          Welcome to the modern Democratic Party. And they’re too dumb to realize that’s the reason that Trump is President.

          PS: Don’t believe ANYTHING coming from the Chinese.

      • Alank says:

        And arrested doctors and journalists
        Refused to allow CDC enter the country
        Lied to WHO
        Refused to share viral material
        Expelled NYT, WSJ, WAPost
        Removed research papers from internet
        Censoring all research publications

        Yes China is a poor victim of western propaganda. You would probably refer to the Great Leap Forward as an agricultural development plan that inadvertently resulted in some nutrient deficiencies for a few citizens

        • Sue Sonata Form says:

          China strongly defended the quality of its exports Monday, saying some problems were a result of varying global product standards … But continuing discoveries of high levels of chemicals and toxins in Chinese goods — from toothpaste and clothes to fish and juice — have made salvaging its reputation an uphill task.

          (If you make a pact with the devil don’t complain about the terms!)

  • V.Lind says:

    Oh, for the love of God, woman, get off Instagram and read a paper or listen to a newscast. Everyone else in the world knows “who’s responsible for this.”

    • Nelly says:

      And who is that person?

      • John Borstlap says:

        It is Mrs Wang Li Chang, wife of Mr To Fu Chang, minor official at the city council, mother of two sons, who bought a pangolin pie at the Wuhan market, made of infectuous sewer bats cooked in water taken from the nearby muddy lake. Warming it up in the magnetron made her sneeze but a telephone call to the local party office told her to keep quiet. The rest we know.

      • alma regina says:

        Sigh… it’s not a person – it’s a virus!
        The virus is the third zoonotic coronavirus, after SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, but appears to be the only one with pandemic potential.

        The outbreak was linked to the Hua Nan seafood and wet animal wholesale market in Wuhan.

        Wuhan is a city of 11 million inhabitants and is a major transport hub.

    • Charles Clark-Maxwell says:

      Stick to the singing, love

    • Bettina says:

      Communist China babe!

      ALL “leaders” to the left around the globe have proven utterly WORTHLESS since!!!!!

      None of them speak of timelines of either getting people back to work in an orderly fashion by industry or firm MONTHLY financial assistance for the foreseeable future as many go homeless and hungry.

      We all stand together in helping our neighbors at an individual level but actual leadership and financial certitude is the only way forward.

      -Bless all who are ill, dead and entering poverty…

    • Alank says:

      Maybe Mr. V Lind should read “news” not emanating from the CCP, Russia, or Iran. If you actually believe that the virus did originate or spread to the rest of the world from China, then I doubt anyone could reason with you. As Swift wrote ” It is useless to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.”

      • V.Lind says:

        It’s Ms., but you weren’t to know. Nor were you to know what I “actually believe[d].” The silly cow is asking “who is responsible for all this mess?”

        All I am saying is she needs to read and follow the history of the pandemic, which unlike some here I do not attribute to some malevolent political agenda on anyone’s part.

        There may indeed have been carelessness, lack of political will to face the scope of the problem and many other things that each have a “who” attached to them, but nobody set out to make Anna Netrebko’s life difficult.

        It started, it spread, and people have become ill and died, and various governments have imposed various instructions to their citizenries as to what they are to do while it is still a live threat.

        • PaulD says:

          Calling Ms. Nebreko a “silly cow” is pretty darn sexist.

          • alma regina says:

            Well.. that’s also her own merit! A great voice does not mean a great mind… better keep mouth closed when not on stage

        • alank says:

          Whether or not the release of the virus was purposeful or inadvertent, the CCP in my view soon realized the geopolitical benefits from disrupting western economies and they have acted in accordance with that view. They are malevolent. Period. Not the Chinese people or their heroic health care workers. The CCP is a malevolent and evil party.

  • annnon says:

    The Wuhan lab is part of Mao’s secret long term program to eradicate Western bourgeois values. The next phase of the program is to broadcast Peking Opera all over the world, beginning in Africa.

  • Tatiana says:

    Good PR! Good fellow Anna.

  • Peter San Diego says:

    Bats are responsible: it’s their uniquely robust immune systems that enable them to host such a vast array of viruses and provide environments for viral evolution. In the case of SARS-Cov-2, it’s the horseshoe bat, in particular.

    Oh, and humans, too, for insisting on mucking about with bats and other wildlife as food sources.

    Note that human domestication of animal species from dogs through hogs generated many dozens of diseases shared with them; they were responsible for severe epidemics from the times of the earliest urban environments; over centuries of exposure, human immune systems evolved to the point where most of those shared zoonotic diseases became no longer so lethal.

    And the earliest cuneiform records include accounts of isolating the sick and quarantining arrivals from outside cities as public health measures in epidemics. Plus ca change, etc…

    • Angeleno says:

      Just a minor clarification: although it seems to be accepted that the virus existed in bats, it may have passed through another species before getting to humans.

    • Hmus says:

      native bats in the US are in fact endangered duie to their own pandemic, a white-nose fungus.

    • Sue Sonata Form says:

      Then there’s the Hendra Virus, from bats to horses to humans. Lethal. Greenies have demanded that bats are ‘protected’ in Australia. You couldn’t make it up!! They congregate in their thousands in suburban (mainly regional) areas, destroying trees – and people look on helplessly as their property prices plummet and lifestyles are destroyed.

      It’s time to protect THE PEOPLE.

  • An Empty Cuffietta. says:

    She was never a mental giant.

  • Dennis says:

    Well, doesn’t she know that questions can’t be asked these days? Anyone who dares question the party line of the mainstream media and political overlords (having a field day grasping dictatorial powers, running roughshod over all civil and Constitutional rights) who have manufactured this crisis, is clearly a “denialist” who wants people to die!

    [Never mind that every sound study shows actual infection death rates around .16%, i.e. about what a serious flu season would be – See the indispensable Swiss Propaganda Research site, swprs.org. Rather than admitting their models were utterly wrong and the response counterproductive at best, and at worst criminally insane, media and politicians are just doubling down on more of the same lies, choking society to death and causing far more harm, death and destruction that this virus ever would had it just run its course until herd immunity been achieved. Instead they, in cohoots, with Big Pharma want to sell the notion that nothing can ever get back to normal for upwards of two years until the suddenly ubiguitous Bill Gates and delivers an alleged vaccine. What a grotesque and sick world.]

    • Sue Sonata Form says:

      It was like that long before Covid-19!! Try and find a space within it – your own little piece of bucolic idyll – and ignore the rest. Listen to music instead of the shrill barkings of the media pack – all anti-Trump and pro-Dementia (sorry, Biden).

    • Saxon Broken says:

      Sigh. We can’t be sure about the death rate from COVID-19 since at the moment we don’t have the right data. You estimate of 0.16% would be quite a low estimate (but not impossible). But in any case, it really is a bit more dangerous than the flu (but certainly not much more).

      There really isn’t a plot by government (and Bill Gates). The death rate rises a lot when the health system gets overwhelmed. And it did get overwhelmed in Italy and New York. Social distancing has ensured that other places did not, and won’t, get overwhelmed.

      More is being learned about the virus all the time. And it seems that most countries are in the situation they can start to relax their lockdown. We will have to go slowly, step-by-step, checking all the time that the virus is not getting out of control. There is a good chance that much of life can return to something approaching normality by the Autumn.

  • Hal Hobbs says:

    Has the fat lady sung?

  • Peter says:

    I think the real question could be: “who is responsible for all this mess !?!?!???” in the opera world to have somebody like AN be one of today’s “leading” sopranos? What happened to real singing and true understanding and feeling of the music? I am kind of tired of seeing the same figure over and over, everything so ghastly overrated! It’s just Ok, surely not something that incredible.
    But somehow she always gets away with it, because she plays the good girl, everybody’s best pal, maybe she is…
    Who really cares about what she might be insinuating, why should we even care?

    • Eric says:

      The sad thing is that when she was young she had a lovely lyric voice, but instead of developing her technique in that direction she decided – or someone told her – that she should sing heavier dramatic roles, resulting in the artificially darkened, wobbly sound we are now subjected to.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykzW_x1IRho

  • Steve Gray says:

    Putin. Everything is Putin’s fault.

  • Mustafa Kandan says:

    As far as I am concerned it is the dreary Chinese government. I do not mind a Chinese century, but only under a benign and democratic government.

  • bryan says:

    just sing Netrebko…..just stick to singing…please.

  • Herbert von Solti says:

    I see what you did there!

    • Micaelo Cassetti says:

      I am going to try hard to resist any comments of any nature about musical Fledermausen…
      Or the Python sketch involving a King and a bat.

  • Charles says:

    She was a fine singer but not the deepest thinking, obviously.

  • Tom Phillips says:

    As a Soprano, Anna Netrebko is one of our greatest artists. As a political and social “thinker”…not so much. Really not interested in what this Putin-worshipping individual has to say on any subject outside her direct area of expertise.

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