Anna Netrebko faces Hamburg protests and empty seats
NewsA small demonstration – around 50 people – protested peacefully outside Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie against Wednesday’s recital by the Russian soprano and her husband Yusif Eyvazov.
More worrying were swatches of empty seats, signifying that a portion of the soprano’s fanbase is unhappy with her equivocations over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
A quarter of the seats were unsold, according to one internal estimate.
Possibly due to the uncertain economic situation. This also happened when the recession of 2008 hit. One minute theatres were full, the next the younger sections of the audiences literally disappeared.
Or maybe they don’t want to hear someone who is past it
Pffffffff quarter?
The MET is struggling to sell even 60% of seats for star-cast classical productions
Stop trying, Norman
Nothing to be proud of. If you fail to sell a 2100 hall (assuming the larger hall was booked, not the small hall or the studio) in the second largest city in Germany, a metropolitan area of 5 millions, it doesn’t have anything to do with Covid, it’s related to you. Like every metropolitan area everywhere, Hamburg has its 0.1% stinky rich who don’t know what to do with their time and money, with ‘recession’ not part of their vocabulary. This crowd alone can fill three Elbphilarmonies. After them come the second ranks who are merely extremely well off, and they are at least ten times more. The Met may struggle to fill their hall but they have a seating capacity of 3700, and they have to fill it night after night during the season, not just once. 60% of the Met fills the Elbphilarmonie to the rafters and some.
They may not all be opera lovers.
But the very same crowd has no trouble filling various opera houses to the rafters at the opening of the season? In that area, the rich for whom money don’t matter are a crowd of 50-100 thousands at the very least. There’s no need for them to be _all_ opera lovers, 2-3% would be enough to fill the Elbphil, and I haven’t mentioned the tourists at all.
You know, AN’s problem isn’t that there aren’t enough opera lovers, it’s that true opera lovers aren’t as fond of her _singing_ as her online defenders would like us to believe. And now it looks like the crowd of the indecently rich, who are admittedly more fond of celebrity chasing than opera, aren’t that fond of her _person_ either, not fond enough to fork out a hundred or so for the ‘privilege’ of taking a selfie in the Elbphil at an AN concert.
Those that didn’t go are opera lovers.
Lots of blather
And how many people live in New York with suburbs?
Only a primitive human mixing politics with culture.
There always will be Anna Netrebko audience in the whole World!
People want a beautiful art, and Anna’s uniqueness as an artist, is what the audience is awaiting.
Her agent is paying you too much, or he isn’t paying the guy who writes copy for him enough. Tell him he should aim for credibility, not for laughs.
Big who cares. The voice is gone all that’s left is the attitude. Say goodbye and leave we don’t care about you anymore
More worring?! Whata are you worring, Slippeddisc, about?!?!?! I am worried about the morale and ethics of people who bought tickets to a performance by a person (not an artist) who, for economic reasons, did not condemn killing people.
How many people were killed in Korea , Vietnam , Iraq , etc ., by U.S. troops and bombing ? Does that bother you ?
The reason for the empty seats can be incredibly high prices for the tickets. I don’t know about Hamburg, but in Israel they are selling tickets for a really very high price (though I as many other music lovers here are not going to the concert anyway because of her equivocations about the Russian invasion)
But she’s already publicly voiced her condemnation against the war. That was enough for me. Why not you?
Anna Netrebko was a great soprano. I saw many of her marvelous performances, including WAR AND PEACE, DON PASQUALI, EUGENE ONEGIN, and ANNA BOLENA at the Met. Her political stance has destroyed her career. A real-life tragedy!
Nowadays some people judge everything by their own political stance. It has been US policy to have the fighting and dying somewhere else, just not in the US. In Korea, in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya, in the Balkans, etc – and now in Ukraine. The EU/NATO joins in the killing. Happy now, that the dying is all elsewhere? It’s not as if the West doesn’t have much blood on its hands. A bit hypocritical, don’t you think, to judge someone else just because he/she doesn’t share your political feelings? AN is a soprano. If you don’t like her singing, that’s one thing. Who cares what her or your political leanings are? I don’t. AN has a beautiful, lyric voice, that’s all I care about. She has given millions of people great enjoyment. People who don’t attend her performances are denying themselves. One last thing, Germany/Western Europe, not Russia/Soviet Union, is responsible for starting two of the most destructive wars in history.
M ZEED,
What an ignorant twit you are : Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union carved up Poland – Look at the Nazi- Soviet Pact .The Soviets invaded Poland a week later – and shook hands with the Germans at their agreed – to “border” – and both stated killing…
We are discussing AN. Please keep the Nazis out of this conversation. Today’s Germany is a beautiful country and it was befitting to have Anna perform at the equally beautiful Elbphilharmonie. As Zeed says she has given millions of people enjoyment and I wish she could come to San Francisco so I can see her.