The year Valery Gergiev vanished
NewsAt the turn of 2022, Gergiev was the busiest, wealthiest and most sought-after of the world’s musicians, master of St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre and the Munich Philharmonic and a guest in all the right places.
Then his close friend Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February and all of Gergiev’s glory just vanished into thin air.
Slippeddisc.com covered the Gergiev story closely, but it was not the most viewed post of the year.
These were:
2 1 in 4 concertgoers won’t return
5 a boy is booed at Covent Garden
7 Moscow cops break up Lyubimov recital
Can you share the top 20 most viewed posts of the year?
In 50 years Gergiev will be remembered for his handful of incredible recordings and filmed performances. History will have separated the man and the music, just like it has done for Karajan.
@Not a gergiev hater – I’m sure I’m going to regret asking here, but what does Karajan have to do with it? Sorry, but the cases are not remotely comparable.
He was the member of nazy party. Not remotely comparable, indeed.
No – not remotely comparable (whatever the “nazy” party is). You will have to do better than that.
The emphasis there needs to be on “handful” (and a very small handful at that).
Karajan was never the close friend of a murderous dictator!
True. An ethical question: What is worse: a hundred innocent people killed by a dictator, or a hundred innocent people killed by a democratically elected head of state?
Another ethical question:
What is worse: a hundred innocent people killed by the head of another nation, or a hundred innocent people killed by the head of your nation?
I can’t say I’m familiar with Gergiev’s work. I’ve heard some stuff of his which I thought was quite fine but that’s about it. Which of his recordings and filmed performances do you regard as incredible? Thanks in advance.
The Sheherazade recording with Kirov orchestra from early 2000s is absolutely sensational.
If only he really HAD vanished!
Yes, he is probably guilty of war in Ukraine. Do you know what you are talking about? Where all that hatred came from?
Not hate. Human attitude. Disgust.
and it comes when seeing humble people beeing killed because they didn t leave their home.
I don’t think so. Karajan always carries an asterisk, bigger for some than others. But he could be seen as a young opportunist who took the path he needed for a career; craven but understandable, and he lived/worked for 40+ years after the Nazis fell.
Gergiev’s stature would have let him walk away from Putin and Russia and into the arms of ever. Others with far less gave up more; Rostropovich left the Soviet Union not really sure what awaited him. Maybe he will have time and opportunity eventually to rehabilitate himself in the West; otherwise he will be remembered as the brilliant conductor who threw it all away to side with the Butcher of Bucha (and the Terror of Tskhinvali). Well, they’ll love him in Voronezh.
It’s easy to say all this from our position of course. But unfortunately even if he wanted to, Gergiev couldn’t leave Russia, because his ties to the Mariinsky run too deep. In the Guardian interview of 1998 already, before Putin came to power, he said the Mariinsky was the most important thing in the world to him, and that he would devote his life to it. That he did. His career in the West always served to merely build up his profile and ultimately help the Mariinsky shine internationally. And of course he had to connect with Putin to allow the Mariinsky to flourish, most notably through the big building projects, repaying the huge debts that came with those, and making the house profitable by having so many performances every week. Could he leave, become a western hero of resistance to dictatorship, make millions and live the good life? Yes. But that would mean abandoning the company he devoted his life to. As a true captain, he decided to go down with the ship.
It’s useless to explain that to hyenas without brain. Why they didn’t leave or at least condamn USA in times og Afganistan, Iraq… Oh, I’m sorry, their government didn’t tell them to do so.
Far more Americans did than you slavish Russians. What wonderful regimes you have and people you are.
I am not a slavish Russian. There must be something very wrong with you if you conclude things not knowing me at all. And to think that we Europeans must think the same way. What a dictator lives secretly in you.
Raphael Kubelik left Czechoslovakia, Prague, and his beloved Czech Philharmonic, and the Prague Spring Festival that he founded because he didn’t want to be associated with the communist government; he could have lived well under it.
Gergiev has been a transformational leader for the Maryinsky, but he could walk away, and it would send an important message.
All I don’t agree with is the “brilliant” part. Gergiev can be very good in the right repertoire, on the right occasion. But often, in my experience, his performances have been routine and seemingly under-rehearsed. Sometimes he has varied widely even in the same work with the same ensemble. (Example: Much better Met Eugene Onegins in 2007 than in 2013.)
He’s worthless in anything non-Russian – especially his Wagnerian “attempts”.
Vanished and banished.
I miss him in the west!
“Go East! young woman. Go East!”
His odour will linger for a while, but that too will fade eventually.
Gergiev is a great conductor and a good person. There is plenty of evidence to back up both of those assertions. He doesn’t have jack to do with the conflict in the Ukraine. The only logical explanation for the attack on Russian artists is that there is none.
Maybe orchestras won’t need to blow their budget on hiring his assistant to conduct the rehearsals then.
And no longer need to fumigate the rehearsal and his dressing rooms.