Gergiev has $150mn fortune in Italy
NewsCorriere della sera reports today that the Russian conductor, now banned from La Scala, owns property worth 150 million Euros in the country, including around 20 buildings that he is trying to sell.
These include a villa on the Amalfi Coast, complete with Roman ruins, the Palazzo Barbarigo on San Vio in Venice, the Caffè Quadri and some shops in Piazza San Marco.
Gergiev inherited one quarter of the estate of the Japanese benefactor Yoko Nagae Ceschina, who died in 2015.
The bulk of Gergiev’s fortune is in Russia and in his native province, North Ossetia, where he is reported to be building a Putin-like palace.
Quite clear that Italian lawyers and trustees needs to take over the case now.
Seize his assets. I wouldn’t be surprised if this scumbag were involved in money laundering schemes — oligarchs “sponsor” his performances in the West and then he earns a perfectly legitimate conducting fee, on their behalf.
Do we have to descend to foul language at a time like this?
Distasteful as they are, “oligarch” is not generally considered a foul name.
“scumbag” is!
Overrated?
Yes.
Why? Cause he has different beliefs than you? How is that appropriate to seize assets. Unless he actually has committed a crime, your feelings on him are irrelevant.
I guess he ll be asked to donate some money for the war effort.
But what I am astonished about is to find out ‘how many orchestras and festival and so on worked with him. He had been very well paid for only 1-2 working days per year? Otherwise he wouldn t be able to work with so many.
It says something about the way it works in this classical music world.
For some, it’ s a gold mine.
Exactly. Let this be a lesson in my version of the ‘maestro myth’. There is no such thing. These people perform a job, no different than how anyone else goes about their own daily job. Europeans (and I’m sure some Americans) threw lots of money of at this guy, only to have their orchestral players be insulted by Gergiev showing up late, and talking on multiple phones during rehearsals. Shame on their administrators for believing in this nonsense. The sooner everyone understands that a conductor – in these times, when the players already know their excerpts forwards and backwards – is little more than a necessary evil, the better off we’ll all be. They’re a medium between the composer and the orchestra; with a score, a stick (a toothpick in Gergiev’s case), and a Ouija Board to help them pretend that they’re better connected to the composer’s ‘intentions’ than anyone else. Yes, some are better at it than others. That’s why we have choices, and much of those choices are driven by personal taste. I know this, as I’ve played under hundreds of conductors in my time. I’ve always found that even the worst of conductors come to rehearsal with some small (or big) insight into the music they’re performing. They wouldn’t bother doing such a job if they didn’t have something to say. As a player, I give them all a chance and my full attention.
Absolutely. I also know a principal player in the London Symphony Orchestra who quit as soon as Gergiev was appointed rightly determining that he couldn’t work under a bully.
Don’t like him, never liked him… something is wrong with him…
If you think GERGIEV only works one or two days per week then you really have No followed his career
He works nonstop crossing continents with hardly a break between concerts
In 1988 he became general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre and artistic director of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg.
That is his passion and he has done a magnificent job. Rebuilding the theatre and attracting an array of famous artists to perform there
The unfortunate truth is he only managed to accomplish that because Putin assigned funds to the Project
Funds which would immediately dry up at any public criticism of Putin ,resulting in a loss of jobs for Many who worked tirelessly with GERGIEV over the years
This is a sad day for Music lovers
Musical Oligarch?
Trifonov and Sophie-Mutter had a nice time in Moscow recently. All smiles on instagram!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFhafIogVGE
I would give western capitalism a partial blame for such outgrowths and entanglements.
USA and Europe have been fine role models for decades.
Time to turn over a new leaf.
Enjoy your country which has thrived without Western capitalism (fantasyland?).
China
Freeze his ass(ets)
Freeze?! You’re being generous. I would engage in the most draconian of acts and seize ALL his assets and those of ALL Putin’s cronies until Ukraine is returned to her citizens. All that money should be set aside as reparations to the Ukrainians for destruction of property, injury and loss of life though no amount of roubles can bring back a loved one. East and West Germany made reparations. Ukraine and her citizens deserve no less!!
That such performers amass such fortunes is utterly ridiculous…. they show themselves to be parasites, skimming the concert world for personal gain.
There is a great difference between generously rewarding great performers and let them bleeding the art form. Running concert life as a capitalist business according to market forces and blown-up stardom is destroying classical music. But Norman has already described the process in ‘Who killed classical music?’ That book made me physically ill, not because of the book but what it describes. It has not lost anything of its actuality.
https://www.amazon.com/Who-Killed-Classical-Music-Corporate/dp/1559724153
Never ever in history there were performers getting rich in the sense of the scale mentioned in this post. Let alone composers, many of them scraping the bottom of the barrel. Exceptions? Meyerbeer (because of the special royalty conditions of the Parisian opera), Wagner (being paid by the King of Bavaria), Strauss (partly through conducting, but he lost his fortune twice because of war). On the other end of the scale: Schubert (never earning anything with his music), Chopin (his funeral had to be paid by friends), Franck (struggling with piano teaching), Debussy (incapable of money management).
I am surprised by the size of his assets. I never expected him to be poor, but this is gigantic. Could he be the richest living classical musician, perhaps even in history?
Karajan and Bernstein were worth in the range of $300 million, when they died, to my understanding. Though the Karajan figure came from Norman, I think, so take it for what it’s worth.
Of course much of Bernstein’s fortune probably came from royalties on his musicals.
Gergiev is not a Karajan (although in one aspect he actually is…) and most certainly never was and never will be a Bernstein.
It’s a lot, but consider this: Most A-list conductors who aren’t friends with a dictator earn several million dollars each year per ensemble where they are the chief conductor/music direct. And then there are fees from guest conducting gigs, recording fees, royalties, etc. So if you earn $5 million/year for 30 years, that’s $150 million. And if all of that money was invested with an 8 percent average annual return, it would total $560 million.
My guess is that there are quite a few conductors and soloists out there who are sitting on fortunes worth upwards of half a billion dollars.
Good point. Obviously, I am in the wrong job. If I only could get Deutsche Grammophon interested in issuing my political science lectures on CD! 😉 On the other hand, even I prefer to listen to music instead of my own voice.
But it is kind of good to hear that you can get filthy rich not just by the way of sports or rock music..
When performers get that rich, what do they do with the surplus money, when their families have been saturated? You can only consume a certain amount of finances for your own life. Do they invest their surplus wealth back into the art form? To make interesting projects possible? To invest into education, into music programs, into grants for students? Into charities? I think that is almost never the case. I only know of one conductor who heavily invested in a foundation to support the development of autistic children: Van Zweden.
They are overpaid, but very few conductors or soloists earn $5M/year.
Whats next? Banning caviar. Banning Stoliychnaya vodka.
The Governor of New Hampshire ordered Russian made vodka taken off the shelves 3 days ago. So yes.
Most people can’t afford caviar, no need to ban it. And most people in the West don’t ply themselves with vodka.But I bet both aren’t missing from Gergiev’s table.
It is interesting to what straws Gergiev’s apologists grasp. Anything to deflect from the fact that he is an oligarch conductor affiliated with a politician currently playing Adolf. Thousands of civilians have already died, including children. You of course have other priorities. A bit of trolling is uplifting, isn’t it, Norron Lee?
Wyborova is better anyway. Not to mention the sublime Żubrówka!
Stolichnaya is owned by a Luxembourgeois company and manufactured in Latvia; it has issued a public statement unequivocally condemning the invasion. Smirnoff is British-owned (Diageo) and made in Illinois, so the ire against both is misplaced.
Strong alcoholic drinks destroy brain cells, especially vodka. We see the results of vodka comsumption on the news.
Vodka produced in Russia has been banned in Australia since the downing of MH17.
absolute nonsense. Nothing of the sort happened.
Stoli is made in Latvia!!
“Stoli is made in Latvia!!”
Stolichnaya Elit is made in Russia, according to the bottle.
That’s why we used Gorilka (Ukraine) instead of Vodka in cocktails yesterday.
Cheers lads!
The trouble with banning Russian exports is that it is a backwards dysfunctional nation that doesn’t make anything anybody wants and exports nothing but grain and what can be extracted from the ground. I have one Russian made item in my home–a crappy balalaika that my grandparent bought for me when they visited the USSR with my uncle, who was there for a mathematics convention in the mid 1960s. I would guess that this is one more item than the overwhelming majority of American households possess.
Well, oil and gas might come to mind. Vodka, of course. But yes, their value chain mostly consists of the first link only.
Why not? It’s neither an essential item nor a prescription drug. Why should Russian business continue to generate any revenue from exports that when they pay corporate taxes to the state will be used to acquire more weaponry to decimate an independent, sovereign nation?
Wow, good idea :->
Stoli, niw actually to become STOLI, is made in Latvia.
Better move quickly to get this oligarch’s money in the west!
This is hilarious : https://youtu.be/cyhLoz9dagQ
Brilliantly hilarious indeed. And very TRUE concerning the nature of the concert world.
I am sorry but – what??
I get that a Domingo owns a couple houses here and there. But 20 worth $150,000,000 is a bit shady, or? I have seen the documentary on Perlman, one of the best violinists of our time, and he lives in a slightly bigger than normal apartment in NYC. Other musicians have a regular house and a summer house, maybe 2 of them.
But twenty of them? For what, wiggling his fingers? He isn’t that great.
Fishy. Confiscate them.
They have so much money they hide it or invest in other parts of the world. It benefits them immensely to be close and adoring to putin. Italy should confiscate and sell the homes
Gergiev is a music, not a politician. If you think Putin will change course because Gergiev issues a statement condemning the war, you are fooling yourself. He appears not to be manipulated by the cancel culture mentality, which is controlling many other artists.
“He appears not to be manipulated by the cancel culture mentality, which is controlling many other artists.” – You’re probably right HOWEVER, he’s enjoyed the opportunity to grace (along with the resulting prestige) some of the best concert stages across Europe and North America. This is no longer the case. Putin’s oligarchs are basically persona non grata in the countries where they have stashed ill gotten gains and acquired real estate etc. Aeroflot has been denied air space and landing rights almost everywhere, I suspect oligarchs might experience similar challenges. They have a lot of money and if this continues can only spend it within Russian borders on what might become diminishing supplies of luxury goods. Currying favor with Putin comes with a ‘new’ price – a return to isolation.
Confiscate, sell, send the money to Ukraine.
In other words he’ll be just fine if he just goes the hell away. What an overrated embarrassment he has turned out to be.
Oligarch so sanction, and family. Confiscate assets.
Nothing brings out the true nature of musicians more than hearing about another musician’s financial success.
You think everyone here is a musician? That’s funny.
What has this to do with music ?
I agree, everything cultural should be protected and not be considered just as some soft power tool for a global war
And that $150m.is only Italy. I wonder how much.he has in other countries.
It sounds like money laundering to many…
Confiscate as soon as possible. And donate to víctima of Ukraine.
I would bet most conductors own such an amount or close to that amount.
As was said previously (by me anyway) in other posts,easier to be a conductor than being a soloist.
He should hand that fortune over to Ukrainians and ask for forgiveness.
It’s disgusting that anyone should have assests of 150,000,000 when people are starving throughout the world… Musk, Trump, Gates etc.
Sono d’ accordo con la Nebrekto : non si può togliere il lavoro a un artista per le sue opinioni. Questo modo di procedere mi ricorda il processo alle intenzioni dei regimi come il sovietico o il fascista. Mi sembra un’ ipocrisia. Così facendo ci mettiamo sullo stesso piano di Putin. Adesso si fa pure l’ analisi dei suoi beni e si scredita ulteriormente questa persona.
Neid ist eine Todsünde
“I would bet most conductors own such an amount or close to that amount.”
That is nonsense. Succesful conductors like Rattle, Chailly or Levine don’t even reach double digits in net worth, in millions. The reason why the Corriere has such a high estimate (and that’s what it is: an estimate) is because Gergiev operates on the fringe of the oligarch crime world, where everybody’s a billionaire.
In addition it doesn’t hurt he’s been burning the candle on both ends as a conductor, letting his assistants take care of the rehearsing and showing up two minutes before showtime. Picking up four world famous conductor’s fees a week (if not more) adds up.
I think the people didn´t read the text. Gergiev INHERITED one quarter of the huge fortune of a japanese countess who was married with a very rich italian industrial. So is easy to understand how he got this large amount of money. Check the story of the countess for more details.