Christian Thielemann attacks ‘malice’ against Gergiev
NewsThe German conductor has taken, as he so often does, a contrarian view on current affairs.
‘Mir ist bei dieser Diskussion ein bisschen zu viel Häme oft im Spiel,’ he said yesterday in Dresden, meaning: ‘I often feel a bit too much malice in this discussion.’
Thielemann went on to say that Gergiev is a great conductor and a friend with whom he likes to go to concerts. ‘I also know him personally quite well. We have never discussed politics. But I have to say I admire him a lot.’
With regard to Anna Netrebko he said: ‘ “I miss the human aspect a bit in this discussion.’
No surprise!
There is a double standard: Are we requiring non-Russian conductors to issue similar anti-Putin statements?
To date, which non-Russian conductor has issued the kind of denunciation of Putin that the West is demanding of Russian conductors?
If non-Russian conductors are just as reluctant to publicly denounce Putin,, wouldn’t that demonstrate the untenable position that Russian conductors are put into, as well as reveal the moral timidity of ALL conductors?
We are giving non-Russian conductors a pass, assuming that “of course” they are against Putin, it’s “obvious” they denounce Putin. Do they now? Where’s the proof?
Is that you, “double standards”? “SVM”?
“Are we requiring non-Russian conductors to issue similar anti-Putin statements?”
You are totally confused. This isn’t about nationality, this is about Putin supporters. Why should non-Russian (or of any nationality) conductors denounce Putin if they weren’t his friends to begin with? You trolls try very hard to make the sacking of Gergiev look like a consequence of his nationality, but it isn’t. Tell Putin’s propaganda office to furnish you with better arguments.
A rare occasion where I agree with Thielemann. Much of the blacklisting seems shortsighted and caught up in the hysteria of war. We need a cease fire and peace negotiations as soon as possible. Vengeance and malice will not help. Are we forgetting history’s lessons about wars and pogroms?
Back channel communication has historically been important in dealing with the USSR and Russia. Gergiev might have been especially useful in that regard since peace will only come when Putin finds a way of saving face. At the moment, both sides are thinking in terms of total victory, but in the end, Realpolitik will be what happens and we are going to be left with the wounds of our pogrom.
Russia are committing war crimes. You don’t negotiate with that. And you don’t excuse the supporters. They should be sanctioned back to the stone age. If every coward spoke out then Putin would have little choice. Thielemann’s comments are a vile insult to those innocents who have already lost their lives.
This invasion is wholly unjustified. And there’s no shades of grey here. You either support it or you don’t. Career be damned.
I could not agree with you more, William Osborne.
This is not about saving face. Putin will stop only when he gets what he wants, and what he wants is political control over the Ukraine. He won’t stop until he imposes his will over the Ukraine, or at least over the half more important to him. Glad to be able to explain politics to you.
In case you have missed it, there were negotiation in 2021, and there are on and off negotiations since Monday, but you apparently live in your own bubble.
He’ll stop when he loses.
It’s never over until it’s over: and it’s not over yet.
Perhaps he will lose, but to what price? Adolf lost to, eventually. We all know to what price.
You mean he ll stop after Ukraine?
@Naivity For the time being, yes. Afterward…
It was a cynical remark. Of course he ll try to invade all he can to the borders of Nato . So Moldova is the next. We hope he ll stop there, otherwise it s WW3
No. He’s currently gearing up to take Moldova as well.
Beyond misguided. War is a hysterical event.
William, I dare you to go to Kharkiv and look at the result of the war crimes committed there: dead bodies of innocent Ukrainians and stand in the bombed out opera house and write these words. You are disconnected from reality.
“Our pogrom”? You elevate this above the slaughter of innocent men, women and children? In addition to Gergiev’s complicit silence, Thielemann’s stupidity masquerading as contrarianism, and Netrebko’s clear indifference I hope the world remembers your pathetic response, too.
God have mercy on your soul.
“Both sides are thinking total victory.” You beclown yourself with every post. Ukraine was invaded by Russia. That’s a war crime. They’re being destroyed but you’re have them “negotiate.” With your attitude we’d all have been speaking German the past 80 years.
I was going to write a long response, but the bottom line is that Mr. Osborne perfectly fits the definition of “useful idiot.”
“Back channel communication has historically been important in dealing with the USSR and Russia.”
I think the only “back channel” to Putin is one which Norman wouldn’t want me to explain here on a civilized forum…
Putin deserves the same “back-channel communication” he arranged for notable dissidents — a radioactive or nerve agent in his drink. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving fellow!
A reality check for Mr. Osborne. Putin isn’t thinking of saving face, if he ever had one. According to the second source, he has even denied having bombarded Kyiv.
https://news.yahoo.com/call-putin-frances-macron-reportedly-160126964.html
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-ukraine-russia-macron-putin-conflict
I rather doubt the Ukrainian side is thinking “in terms of total victory,” unless by that you mean “survival as a viable, independent state.”
That said, I believe that while Gergiev’s past enthusiasms for Putin’s military aggressions (South Ossetia, Donbas, Crimea) and refusal to disapprove the current one warrant suspension of hiring him and paying his fees in the West (extendable, perhaps, to the 141 nations that voted to condemn Putin’s aggression at the UN), some of the reactions have gone way overboard. The idea of canceling musical works by Russian composers, for instance, is reminiscent of bans on Beethoven in the U.S. during WWI: totally uncalled for. And I prefer to consider the parlous circumstances of artists in Russia who are keeping their heads down rather than risking the safety of their families via public protest. It goes without saying that I admire the artists willing to protest publicly all the more.
It’s a cute idea but I very much doubt Gergiev would have had any interest in, or indeed motivation for, talking Putin down from the ledge! And I don’t think Putin would have listened anyway. Probably he is not listening to anyone anymore. That’s a big part of the problem here.
Come on, spare us Mr. Osbourne. Gergiev fervently and openly supported Putin by signing letters of support for his imperious actions, even appearing in his campaign commercials. He is a supporter of an autocrat and soon, a war criminal. Gergiev brought this on himself. This isn’t a pogrom, it’s a reckoning for a man who lacks any morality and is therefore not fit to lead a school choir let alone the VPO.
At last someone with brain, intelect, knowledge and moral in the ocean of ignoranr and malicious haters!!! Bravo and thank you Mr Osborne.
On a completely unrelated issue, I have always found Mr. Putin more similar to Hitler than to Stalin.
With your age, you obviously knew them first hand and now Putin?
@Maria What a literal mind you have, Maria. Not all people spend their formative years by posting selfies on social media. Some people learned history in school, among other things.
It is the LACK of contrarian views that ought to concern us nowadays!
In other words, be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian? Yeah, this describes the intelligentsia down to a t. No ideas of your own? No problem, grab someone else’s opinion or work, hang it upside down, and call the result “bringing a new perspective” to whatever. Trash the original too, for good measure, there’s no feeling like biting the hand that enables your exhibition.
Are you one of these “be disagreeable for its own sake” types I seem to encounter more and more often these days?
Hardly any artist, especially a conductor, is irreplaceable, and both of these artists have already enjoyed long careers. In five years, does anyone think Gergiev’s absence from the stage will be any more keenly felt than Dutoit’s absence?
Never knew they were cronies.
Remember the Bayreuth booing of an underrehearsed Tranhäuser?
As nearly always, CT is quite correct.
The removal of Gergiev from his positions is right, given his political outlook and at such a time (with no recantation). However, given he is at the end of the day a musician and head of an opera house, not a politician, still less Putin himself, it should be done more in sorrow than in anger. The ‘malice’ is unbecoming and misdirected.
Was his removal done in anger? If so I must have missed it. To my eye the statements of the people in a position to remove him read very civil. There’s no malice and no anger in those statements. The situation escalated a bit on social media, fueled by information that was news to many people. Most people knew he had gigs in the West, and they also knew he was overbooked and the performances under rehearsed, they just didn’t know _how much_ overbooked and under rehearsed he really was. Now they know he was affiliated with a never ending list of orchestras, basically showing up on the day of the performance, conducting more often than not a mediocre performance, grabbing the money, and running to the airport for the next. In countries where arts are subsidized by the state, a good deal of this money is taxpayer money. His behavior speaks of a certain greed, and not much regard for the arts. Then the people learned he had an estate of 150 millions in Italy. To flit from performance to performance and grab the money when you are in possession of a 150 millions estate isn’t greed anymore, we need a new word. I am not saying people should work for a pittance if they are rich, I am saying they have no excuse whatever for overbooking themselves, no even the excuse they’re poor and need the money. I am also saying the institutions who turned a blind eye to this are complicit in the whole Ponzi scheme, and I am also saying he is probably not the only conductor who operates like on this “principle”. But he not being alone in this doesn’t excuse him. Please notice I haven’t tackled his politics.
Most of the notices I have read have been more in sorrow than in anger in tone, some with open remarks that they hope he can return once the war is over.
I see little malice. I see regret that someone they would prefer be among them has aligned himself, through a refusal to comment, with the invading force.
“His behavior speaks of a certain greed, and not much regard for the arts.”
Not quite: it is rather a rush to do as much as possible and the fear of underoccupation.
This is also why the Mariinsky now has not one, but four (!) big stages. Three of those are in Saint Petersburg, namely the historic one, the “Mariinsky 2” (built because the historic opera house needed a major renovation) and the “Concert hall” (formerly a storage room for decorations, converted after a fire), which is also used for semi-staged performances, and the opera house in Vladivostok (almost as far east as you can get in Russia – let’s say a 9 or 10-hour flight away from Saint Petersburg), inaugurated as an independent opera house, but soon attached to the Mariinsky, which gives the locals the advantage of getting to see operas from the Petersburg repertory which they would never had got the chance to experience: e. g. rare operas by Prokofiev or Wagner (yes, Wagner is a rarity in Russia outside Saint Petersburg and, to a lesser degree, Moscow).
As to “not much regards”, this might be true, but then it is also true for artists and audiences: in Saint Petersburg, it is not rare for him to commence a performance with a delay of 40 minutes – because he’s got a performance earlier the same day or because he and the Mariinsky company have just arrived from another city and needs to rehearse – or for no obvious reason at all.
@Fiery angel You may call it fear of underoccupation (underemployment), I call it greed. He is the general director of Mariinsky, a company that puts up a few hundred(!) performances per season. In his position he has the last word re casting. He can cast himself in half of those performances, or even in all performances, if he wants to. He’ll be busy every day of the week. If you still call this underemployment…
I doubt Russian audiences dare boo him, but the Western institutions who hired him and who were complicit in his sloppy or non-existent rehearsals ought to take a hard look at themselves. They won’t. Maybe it is time for us to take a hard look at them.
People posing with Putin and having such a relationship with him and praising him aren’ t just musicians; they are ambassadors of Putin among music lovers.
This is where the problem is with Gergiev and Netrebko.
Othérwise there are lots of russian sopranos and tenors and conductors and they continue to appear as usual because they are not indentified with Putin.
Anyone who is not on board with the cancellation of Gergiev has shown that they also need to be cancelled.
Welcome to our new world of intolerance. Who needs nuance?
The lack of nuance in the Ukraine doesn’t bother you? Putin’s war machines indiscriminately kill children, women, men, young and old. But of course this pales in comparison to the terrible “injustice” of a few Putin supporters, stinky rich, losing their Western gigs. You seem not to realize that there can be no nuance in this, either the West allows Putin’s supporters to perform, or it doesn’t, it’s a binary choice. And if it allows them to perform, what message does this send? “Go on with the killing, we don’t care.” You know, Mr. Barnard, if nothing else, the commenting on this site has made plain to everyone who can read, that the classical music community is one of the most entitled and egomaniac communities in the arts. It has seemingly lost all humanity. Their interests and nothing else, the rest of the world can go to the devil, literally. For shame. Perhaps people will wake up at long last and ask themselves if we really need them.
Mr. Sandwich, you represent everything that is wrong with the current ‘woke’ illiterati.
Cancelling people for not speaking up is disgusting; maybe they feel it is not necessary to comment on a situation that does not involve they/them.
Food for thought and all the best,
Karl
Well, let’s wait a while to hear Thielemann’s contrarian view as gay rights go on the descent all over, as more and more authoritarians everywhere take over.
As far as I’m informed, Thielemann is gay himself. He’s not exactly vocal about this nor is he a fierce advocate of gay rights, but neither has he taken a homophobic stance.
He may not be aware of Gergiev’s homophobia.
He is not vocal about it because he is not open about his own.
Fear not, in the West, Pride Ideology prevails – so Christians are accused of hate crimes, literally, in the UK, Germany Sweden, Finland – the Bible banned and cancelled.
Muslims and Jews, of course, are not. That would be persecution…
The rights of liberal homosexuals are important, the rights of conservative…well that is just a minority…
Indeed.
Thielemann: Keep thinking your contrarian views, until Putin marches into Berlin, until Russian anti-gay laws are put into place in occupied Germany, until you start wearing a pink triangle, until you are rounded up and put on a cattle train, until…
As with all apologists, it helps to look the other way.
Thielemann and Gergiev has something more in common that goes unremarked. Whereas Gergiev’s Bruckner is unabashedly terrible, Thielemann’s Bruckner is merely functional to these ears. So what they have in common is that neither is a memorable Bruckner conductor.
CT *should* be a great Bruckner conductor – and certainly he perceives himself to be one. But I have yet to hear a single CT Bruckner performance that achieves greatness. To over-simplify, he misses the forest through the trees. He’s so focused on micro-managing each phrase in ever endeavor that he fails to bring out the long line and tell a story that congeals and convinces these ears, let alone taps into the spirituality so present in performances by Karajan, Jochum, Giulini, etc. Solid CT Bruckner, yes, but great, no. Of all the CT Bruckner I’ve heard, there’s only one keeper in the bunch- his Munich recording of the 5th. And it’s a solid performance, not a great one. The Wiener Philharmonic cycle is underwhelming these ears, which is so unfortunate because it could/should have been great.
I do enjoy CT’s Wagner generally speaking, however.
Just because you said it: Seven in Dresden and Four in Vienna (and I’m aware not many would agree with that one). But he does tend to be, as you say, underwhelming.
Thielemann is worth listening too, but the bloodhounds and aggressive confirmists are running the scene just now. When they calm down, we can have a conversation.
Sure, Thielemann is the real victim in this mess.
Did I mention how I loathe stupidity?
Thielemann Arschloch!
Revoke all EU schengen visas for ALL Russian musicians.
Send them all home.
“Thielemann Arschloch!”
This sentence no verb.
“Revoke all EU schengen visas for ALL Russian musicians.”
That’s just stupid. We should offer political asylum to those musicians who oppose Putin and his war.
“Send them all home.”
All those Putin-Fanboys: Sure.
Are you starting a witch hunt at Russian musicans?
McCarthyism at its best.
Russian drivers have been banned from competing in the UK by the national motorsport authority.
Motorsport UK will refuse to recognise licences of competitors from the Russian federation until further notice.
So, music which has a much smaller budget can carry on being an exception?
Some soft and fuzzy rules can apply to musicians with Schengen visas, so carries on
“business as normal”
As for the much vaunted Marriinski concert halls.
“Mariinsky now has not one, but four (!) big stages. Three of those are in Saint Petersburg, namely the historic one, the “Mariinsky 2” (built because the historic opera house needed a major renovation) and the “Concert hall”
Much hyped is more like it!
You have clearly never been to any of them.
They are both hideously ugly, and have acoustics like shit, very much like the same overhyped products of another one of the great Putin admirers that works there.
Ask me how I know.
I can name names.
All wars start with ourselves, wanting power over others with our ‘right’ and only truthful opinions, and then our use of words as weapons become hurtful. Many of you on here don’t like Giergev or Netrebko, you can to name two. Maybe put yourselves into their shoes as on the receiving end of extreme malice, you will envy, and jealousy and in the end, thrown racism for being outstanding Russian musicians.
“Maybe put yourselves into their shoes”
Like this?
I like dictators that invade their peaceful neighbors and I have no clue why people don’t like me.
Check.
Nah, that doesn’t feel right. I’ll stick to Prada.
“All wars start with ourselves, wanting power over others with our ‘right’ ” Perfect description of Putin, congrats.
“our use of words as weapons become hurtful.” I’m not concerned with the hurt inflicted by words, I am concerned with the hurt inflicted by war machines. And for Chrissakes, look up the word “racism” before using it, it’s beyond the pale. AN isn’t a musician, as to _outstanding_ musician, dear me. If you like to believe that everybody who disagrees with you on this is motivated by jealousy and envy, it says a lot about you but nothing about them. I know name calling when I see it, Una.
What a surprise that the arguably leading German conductor, who in the 21st century espoused the philosophy of Germany for Germans and saw to it that a Latvian conductor who didn’t toe the line was banished from Bayreuth, thinks that his counterpart in Russia is being treated badly for failing to speak out against his government’s acts of inhumanity. Gergiev is not merely a Russian cultural leader but the most visible link to putin. Given that at last count 3 oligarchs have made statements calling for peace can anyone excuse gergiev’s refusal to speak out?
After WWII society decried the failure of the majority of German/Austrian cultural elites to speak out. If gergiev spoke out would he face anything like the consequences of those that did during that period? I guess protecting your accumulated wealth and power is more important than demonstrating an iota of humanity.
It shows him up.
You can have been friends with people like Gergiev and then discover that maybe that was not such a good idea.
Thielemann himself has been under fire lately (not because of Ukraine, but because he’s personally loathed). He’s been well known as a guy who caters to right-wing authoritarian circles from the start of his career, and has been fired from several posts recently (as you can read here on SD). Nobody wants to put up with his lord-of-the-manor shenanigans any more. Not surprisingly, he’s taking Gergiev’s side.
Does he also miss the “human aspect” of the war in Ukraine?
@Thielemann:
That’s the regime your pal supports:
https://inagenty.ru/traitors
Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are.
Your friends suck.
Maybe Thielemann should have discussed politics w/ Gergiev.
Which part of NewHitler=Putin or Genocide or killing innocent people or invading a country without being provoked this Thielemann doesn’t understand? How a 6 year old child threatened Putin and Russia that she deserves to be killed by russian soldiers???
For T, it appears that such things are far more difficult to understand than the entire Ring des Nibelungen. Apparently he can only understand Götterdämmerung in terms of notes.
I believe that the “malice” mentioned by Maestro Th. comes mostly from the painful realization of many people that these steps SHOULD have been taken already in 2014 when Crimea was overtaken by Russia.
The writing was on the wall back then, but people did not want to believe that this invasion into Ukraine with the intent of occupying it and disposing the rightful, democratically elected government by military force and terrorism, could ever happen.
Fiona Hill, for one, believes that Putin would not hesitate to use A-bombs if he thought it would advance his purpose (and she is an expert on the matter).
“I miss the human aspect a bit in this discussion.’
The Ukrainians do too! Slave Ukrani!!!!!
Both poised and courageous stance.
Putin police arrested an elderly grandma who survived the siege of Leningrad. Those survivors are considered heroes in Russia. The west saw the photo of her being arrested, but I don’t think the Russians will, due to censorship.
Yes, grandmas and kids in paddy wagons. No wonder there’s a waiting list to be in NATO.
And what do our orchestral players who have worked under him think of him? Usually a good yardstick re. conductors.
wow, thielemann is now out of my system. I admit i had some Putin sympathy before as well, but the man has goen mad and everybody should ake a stand against it, perhaps Thieleman feels some sympathy too for the Tsjetsjens, well go and live there then
Funny. Thielemann lost his job in Munich by not being prolongated and after a lot of stress between him, the press, the administration, the orchestra. Not equal but similar situation of being tuned for scandal in these past days here in Munich. So Christian Th. has a reason to speak for the canceled Gergiev as his successor. And he remains wrong in this special case.
Concert artists and conductors all want three things: money, comfort, and a continuation of their careers. If you go back more than 80 years you will find numerous performers who took advantage of opportunities to play concerts
in Nazi Germany. The list is long, and most survived to have distinguished post-war careers.
Not surprising from a hardcore right-wing fascist. Nonetheless far more talented than Gergiev, especially in Wagnerian repertoire.
Mr. Thielemann, after sitting in Academy of Music in Philadelphia for your wayward, aimless account of Brahms Fourth Symphony in 1997, you had not learned it the least bit any better when you recorded it with Dresden fifteen years later. You might then make a useful import to Russia though. I do recall your Frau ohne schatten from the Met being very fine in 2001-2002, but you’ve got yourself way too mixed up in politics and while your Strauss is very frequently very fine, you similarly to Richard Struass have gotten yourself way too mixed up into politics, including your hiring priorities at the Bayreuth Festival with very greenhorn renditions of Tannhauser and Walkure by Gergiev and Placido Domingo and stagings these past eight years that really suck, most of all perhaps the Tristan und Isolde of 2015, and hardly conducted any better at all either. I do not care if it was Katharina Wagner, with whom however I am surprised you have not tied the knot by now. Your recent Beethoven with Dresden and Bruckner with Vienna have been notably very substandard as well. Ciao!
Let’s see how feels when Putin’s army enters Dresden or Vienna.
Perhaps Thieleman and Gergiev would comment on Russian shelling of a nuclear facility (unlike most Russians they will be aware of this). Let’s see some reaction from the German central government on the former and from Italy on the latter’s property.
As thielmanms friend. That’s ok then .
Gergiev actively supported Putin’s actions in middle East. A scar on International music. Great article sums up the hypocrisy and ‘blind eye’ turned to his support if a tyrannt.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/valery-gergiev-and-the-nightmare-of-music-under-putin
https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/kultur-vergnuegen/musik/thielemann-zum-fall-gergijew-zu-viel-haeme-oft-im-spiel-li.214890
This is yet another example as to why Mr Thielemann has never been offered a major orchestra in the United States. There is absolutely no doubt as to what kind of German conductor he would have been, had he been active in the 1930s. It’s also no coincidence that the music of Hans Pfitzner has long been one of his specialties. Some of us have also never forgotten his comments about Daniel Barenboim, long ago.
Yes, a total lack of humanity on here and elsewhere in preference for malice, and sitting in judgement on gossip and a pile of noise. We got victimised in London as an Irish Catholic family when Northern Ireland was at its worst, and blowing up London as well. We were accused of being part of the IRA and it hurt. There are human beings involved in this discussion. No such thing as a perfect human-being but empty vessels make the most noise. I have three of my Russian friends from Bradford coming for tea and cake this week.