Netrebko’s German date sells out in 24 hours
NewsThe Wiesbaden May Festival reports that all tickets for Anna Netrebko’s two appearances in Nabucco on May 5 and 7 were scooped up online within a day of issue. The tickets were priced at 213.40 Euros.
State Theatre Director Uwe Eric Laufenberg acused the media of fomenting ‘moral hysteria’ against the Russian soprano. Laufenberg added: ‘Ms Netrebko was not guilty of anything. If we didn’t let everyone who said and did dubious things about Russia and Putin before 2014 perform anymore, it would be very empty here.’
Indeed – music comes first. Anyone who comments here otherwise is just heinously jealous of her success by masquerading as taking some allegedly moral high ground.
Anna Netrebko, March 30, 2022: “I expressly condemn the war on Ukraine and my thoughts are with the victims of this war and their families.”
And here is an interview of her in Zeit Online of June 2, 2022:
In a new interview with Zeit Online, the soprano made it clear that she has no plans to sing in her home country. She said, “I have no plans at the moment to sing in Russia, not even at the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, because I don’t think it’s the right time.”
She added, “But to be clear: I love performing in my country and I look forward to singing there again as soon as circumstances allow. I learned to sing there, I started my career there and I really appreciate singing for my audience in Russia.”
The comments come as many media sources claimed that Netrebko was set to perform at the festival.
She added that it was illegal to call the Russian invasion a “war,” emphasizing that, “the Russian news did not talk about war, but about a ‘special operation.’ Since then, it has been forbidden by law in Russia to speak of war in this context.”
When she released her third statement on March 30, the soprano caused an uproar in Russia and was even called a traitor. She said, “In Russia, people are angry that I even said anything against it. They think I’ve betrayed my homeland… I’m not a traitor to my homeland, and I’m not against Ukraine either. I try to stay human.”
When asked whether she could return to Russia, the soprano said, “I think yes. But I wouldn’t go there right now.”
In the interview, Netrebko said she stood by her statement condemning the war saying she was against “this terrible violence” and spoke about her friends and family in Russia as well as her friends in Ukraine.
https://operawire.com/anna-netrebko-will-not-perform-in-russia/#:~:text=Anna%20Netrebko%20will%20not%20sing,sing%20in%20her%20home%20country.
Yes. She is persona non grata in her home country now. The hysteria stirred by some blogger blood hounds should stop.
“Und wer’s nicht gekonnt der stehle weinend sich aus diesem Bund.”
Because being “against war” suggests a moral equivalence, when the fault is 100% on one side.
What? What should she do? She didn’t cause this war, just like you! She never wanted this war and she has no personal responsibility for it, exactly like you.
What are you talking about, you make no sense!
Tamino, the hysteria is only in this fake victimization her supporters peddle on her behalf. She’s not a victim. Parents are deceased, her only sister lives in DK. As for the ‘uproar’ she has allegedly created in Russia, we have only her word for this. The Novosibirsk concert that was so conveniently ‘cancelled’ has never been on her schedule prior to ‘cancellation’. Basta with the sympathy milking, the whitewashing, and with this ‘blood hounds’ rhetoric, it’s getting ridiculous. She is just a poor singer, and an opportunist with a very thick skin who is out to make even more money. No more, and no less.
I don’t agree, but even if so: that makes her like 95% of her colleagues worldwide. So what exactly is the outrage about? Because people who can’t reach Putin directly (and wouldn’t dare at all if they could) need scapegoats?
I didn’t say she is a victim.
I’m just so tired of this entitled clueless armchair moralising of stupid westerners, whose most corageous things in life have been choosing between Pizza or Pasta, or walking in the rain without an umbrella. Jeez…
@Tamino
You do nothing but indirectly declare her a victim in every comment of yours. Your comments are full of ‘blood hounds’, ‘gas chambers’, and what not. Get a grip on yourself and cut the inflammatory rhetoric, Tamino. And you would do well to cut the personal insults too, insults are the weapon of choice of those who lack arguments. But good to know you have indirectly outed yourself as Russian, or at least Easterner; as Westerner you would belong to those ‘stupids’ and ‘clueless’ you so despise…
No, she isn’t doing what 95% of her colleagues are doing.
Did 95% of her colleagues arrange to get useful foreign citizenship?
Did 95% of her colleagues make public statements in which they bragged about undying love for their ‘homeland’, confusing the political regime with ‘homeland’, and political endorsement of said regime with ‘love’ or ‘patriotism’?
Did 95% of her colleagues declare they would like to go to bed with Putin?
Did 95% of her colleagues donate money to separatists? Arts donations in the West are done discreetly with a cheque and a letter, not by clinging to a flag in the front of the camera. Huge donations – as in $50-100 millions – are accompanied by a handshake and the name of the donor bestowed on a building for years to come, but still not accompanied by flag-waving, not even of the official flag.
Did 95% of her colleagues appear in Austrian TV ads for various merchandise?
Did 95% of her colleagues call their critics ‘human shit’? (Come to think of this, are you sure you aren’t Anna in disguise, Tamino? Your newest vocabulary is getting rather interesting…)
Lastly, Tamino, are you familiar with the names of 100 opera singers? I doubt it.
And if you are tired, I recommend cutting on comments, I looked into a couple of posts and you are seemingly everywhere. Must be fatiguing …
Hello, JJ: Under the Austrian Citizenship Act the government may grant citizenship to foreign nationals in the case of extraordinary merit on a case-by-case basis (scientific achievement, sports, entertainment, business investment, etc.). They are allowed to keep their original passports and the German language requirement is waived. Wealth and privilege have their advantages.
Hello @Potpourri
I can read Wikipedia too, thanks Potpourri. I am going to tell you something that you won’t find in Wikipedia: AN got her Austrian citizenship with the strong support of a certain influential individual with right wing sympathies, who is a fan. Politics aside, AN doesn’t qualify for ‘extraordinary merit’. Quality in the opera business is low, this is true, but not THAT low that AN would qualify as ‘extraordinary’; if anything, she is, and always was, a below average opera singer. There are many singers who can sing on pitch, who can phrase in Italian, with reasonable clear diction, who have a semblance of legato, and excellent agility. AN has none of these necessary accomplishments, and never had, though her pitch problems were less terrible in the past. What she did have, was good looks and willingness to parade herself in underwear on stage and go biblically with the tenor. I am sure you will reply that she did so because the stage directors asked this of her; before doing so, I recommend to you the brief interview on Italian TV she gave not so long ago, in which she speaks warmly for such productions. Don’t tell me that she was forced to beat the drum about provocative stagings, we all know how outspoken AN is when asked to do something that contradicts her views or interests. She endorsed this type of stagings because these are useful to her.
I am not deaf to other singers’ vocal deficiencies; AN isn’t the only singer with poor technique out here, but as I wrote above, there are many singers who are a cut above her, it is quite a feat to accumulate as many deficiencies as she did. Also, the other singers don’t go round telling everybody how much they love their ‘homeland’, that happens to be a country who is in process of demolishing another country. They don’t tell how much they would like to take the regime’s leader for a lover. They don’t insult their critics. Extraordinary merit, yeah. Wasn’t back then, is even less now, sorry to disagree with you.
@Potpourri
‘German language requirement is waived.’
Potpourri, don’t you think that after living for 17 years in a country, individuals should make at least the EFFORT toward seriously learning that country’s language? (Decent individuals would make that effort right from the start, and have a reasonable command of their adopted country’s language by the time they have enjoyed the advantages of said country’s citizenship for 17 years.) Not so AN. For her Russia is still ‘homeland’, and Austria is just the fools who helped her to make money by providing her with an useful passport. I maintain she is just a thick-skinned opportunist, who throws fits when things don’t go as planned, and who doesn’t care one whit about the art form, and generally doesn’t care one whit about anything save her own person and the current Russian regime, which she confuses with mother Russia. Should I refresh your memory with her expressed admiration for Putin’s person? Should I refresh your memory with the statement published at the end of the last year? 2022 apparently was the ‘best’ year so far for her. Don’t you think it tells rather a lot about her self-absorption or impudence (have your pick), to declare a year that has seen little else beside warmongering in Ukraine, and loss of lives on both sides, as ‘best’ year for herself?
*Poor singer
Poor as in skill. Her finances are splendid. Welcome to the opera business of the twenty-first century that rewards poor skill.
‘ “But to be clear: I love performing in my country and I look forward to singing there again as soon as circumstances allow. I learned to sing there, I started my career there and I really appreciate singing for my audience in Russia.” … She added that it was illegal to call the Russian invasion a “war,” ‘
She is also an Austrian citizen since 2006. According to Austrian law, she should have relinquished her Russian citizenship when receiving the Austrian one (and pass the language test). She did neither. Had she relinquished her Russian citizenship, she would now be in the situation of other former Russian citizens who have no trouble to call a spade a spade. Putin’s war is a war, not a ‘special operation’. But for AN Russia is still ‘my country’, is still ‘homeland’. Russia, not Austria. The Austrian citizenship is for her just a convenient mean for avoiding European visa, and getting US visa when it was useful to her. She’s just an opportunist, and did what any opportunist does when they decide to milk the better cow – in her case it was the Western cow, so she (or rather her agent) issued a carefully worded, vague statement that passes for condemnation of the war. End of discussion.
Note the deliberate careful failure to expressly mention Putin whom she has endorsed for years, sometimes in the most obsequious servile manner.
And you would instead like to get Novichok in your delivery pizza, we see, you courageous knight of the keyboard
It’s not often that I’d say this, but I’m proud to live in America where arts organizations work out of principle as far as the Netrebko matter is concerned. In Europe, it seems that more and more presenters are simply trying to make a buck on her name, with no sense of right and wrong. Sad.
America has conducted the bloodiest war crimes in the recent past without ANY repercussions. I think Americans, unless they openly protested the illegal war in Iraq, have ZERO moral authority to express opinions about others.
I do not knee-jerk support U.S. policy, and opposed the Iraq war, but it is outrageous to compare anything the U.S. has done to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which is seeking to wipe out a nationality on top of killing tens/hundreds of thousands of people. And the U.S. eventually left Iraq and Afghanistan; the Russians don’t leave when they invade.
What is outrageous are your double standards.
Civilians killed, numbers based on official UN evaluations:
Iraq war: hundreds of thousands
Ukraine war: less than ten thousand
The dead care little, if the aggressor leaves later or not.
And the Russians left Afghanistan just like the US: after they failed and after thousands of civilian deaths.
The Clinton admistration banned the Iraq people from importing medicines and water purification equipment for US bombed water plants. Around 500,000 children died from diseases such as cholera. I bring this up because then Sec of State Madeleine Albright stated on television that it was “worth it.”
Usually these psycopaths hide it better.
“Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.”
H. L. Mencken
Wow. Proud to live in America…the aggregator of so many brutal wars and invasions in the Middle East and Asia over so many decades?
You people have done FAR WORSE than what Netrebko personally done. You have less of a moral awareness of what’s right or wrong than she does!
Something to ponder over your next triple cheeseburger with bacon.
‘If we didn’t let everyone who said and did dubious things about Russia and Putin before 2014 perform anymore, it would be very empty here.’
And if we didn’t let anyone who is a subpar performer since the very beginning, perform extremely demanding roles, it would also empty here, but this has never bothered opera and festival directors, so why not add insult to injury and hire a soprano who can’t sing AND is a Putin apologist? AN is arguably the worst option for Abigaille – she has massive intonation problems, her ‘Italian’ is anything but, no legato, no agility, lumpy sound in the lower half, and acting of the grimace-and-shake-your-fist-at-the-camera variety. Popularity gained by exhibiting bare legs onstage and advertising mineral water on TV, both years ago, doesn’t automatically translate into the technical skill necessary for singing Abigaille NOW, Herr Direktor. Abigaille, of all roles. I am sure Herr Direktor has already exalted reviews in his pocket, three months in advance. Isn’t it wonderful what you can buy these days with taxpayer money? Though if I were he I wouldn’t pay anything for a reshuffling of the same dozen generic superlatives that looks like generated by a computer program. More the fools the newspapers who pay for them, and the readers who believe in them.
The festival director forgot to tell us that the theater capacity is about 1000 seats. Selling 2000 seats isn’t such a great accomplishment. He also forgot to tell that the festival offers very little choice to operagoers: Two Verdi titles, two Janacek, one Strauss, one Wagner, one unpopular Puccini, one unknown Porpora. Small wonder two Verdi performances are already sold out, and another Verdi and two Wagner almost sold out. On the other hand, there are many ‘cultural gems’ like ‘Sex with Madonna’, ‘Body rhythm factory’, lectures about climate change on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and a play called ‘Eurotrash’. Yeah.
Let me make a suggestion: Any time one sees an announcement about Anna N. do NOT get involved. It is ridiculous reading all the same reasons/excuses/defense on any and all sides, political or otherwise! FORGET IT! Her fans will not convince her detractors who, in turn, will not convince her fans. Anna N. is going to sing what she wants, where she wants, with whom she wants and when she wants … until she is voiceless.
Bravo, Dixie: An intelligent, reasonable suggestion. Of course, you know we won’t stop. Debate and vitriol and are the reasons we read Slipped Disc.
Just as I have thought all along: You just want to argue!
Hello, Dixie, I am not an argumentative person but I do enjoy a fact-based debate. Preference for certain singers is a matter of personal taste. Slipped Disc is popular because it is one of the few places where well-informed people can exchange opinions. Sometimes anger and emotion prevail but commenters are usually courteous.
Agreed, however “where she wants” is debatable at this point.
Anna N. is going to sing,,, until she is voiceless. Looks like the time to stop is.. about now?
Unintentionally revealing: “If we didn’t let everyone who said and did dubious things about Russia and Putin before 2014 perform anymore, it would be very empty here.” It very much does seem that at several major theatres – particularly the Met – the Gergiev Russian mafia was until recently very much in control. Why are so many mediocre Slavic performers so regularly promoted at the expense of superior talent elsewhere?
“mediocre slavic” wow. for real? what’s next? you telling us the slaves are the new Jews and should be put down in gas chambers?
‘slaves’ wow. for real? Cut the cheap rhetoric, Tamino, and pay more attention to spelling, if you want people to take you and your comments seriously.
There are very few “big” name opera stars that make it to this provincial capital, even during its “festival.” Still, a shame the town has to get dragged into this mess.
Is she pro Russia and pro Putin these days or isn t she.
She s trying to be a little on both sides and continue a good life and good earnings in the west.
As for the fast selling of tickets, I wish those who bought the tickets were music lovers and not snobism lovers.
There are lots of good sopranos around but tickets are not selling well because they are not famous
I am old enough to know the origins of the comments like Tamino, defending Netrebko and bashing the West…
Yes, music comes first , the rest is only a peaceful ‘special operation’ . I saw it yesterday at Luzhniki Stadium (Moscow) – lot of music played and sung by artists in uniforms.
“Du holde Kunst”…
Meanwhile in Wall Street, military industry stocks are doing great. So great, the Met might get a few more wealthy patrons! Wonderful!
What have you done today to make the world a better place?
Netrebko is the best…..(sorry, she is Russian)