Festival goers are warned of hostile Netrebko demo
NewsThe Baden-Baden artistic director Benedikt Stampa has sent this letter to all of to night’s concertgoers:
Dear visitors to the Festspielhaus,
On Friday, July 21, 2023, the Festspielhaus will be open from 6 p.m. before the concert with Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov.
Please allow more time than usual to arrive. The authorities have alerted us that there may be protests at the Festspielhaus. Therefore, the admission controls will be somewhat more extensive and lengthy this evening than you are accustomed to.
Please use only the side entrances to the Festspielhaus. The box office at the Altes Bahnhof can also only be reached via the side entrances on this evening.
We are in close contact with the responsible authorities in Baden-Baden. Together we will ensure that your visit to the concert and the legally protected forms of protest can take place in mutual respect and in an atmosphere of understanding.
We are looking forward to your visit and the concert with Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov.
Benedikt Stampa
Artistic Director Festspielhaus Baden-Baden
Festspielhaus and Baden-Baden Festival gGmbH
Good to see someone is holding venues’ feet to the fire over this. Putin’s musicians have no place on the international concert circuit as long as he’s committing war crimes left and right.
Hey shitty western guy, did we need to remove West from classical music because they commit crime war in: Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Serbia etc etc? US on the first place, and then France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, UK and all the rest criminals?
Typical “what about-ism” from the most excremental of nationalities, still worshipping Stalin as well as his contemporary reincarnation as Putin. The world would be far better off if Ukraine could blow your nation to bits.
Sulio isn’t a Russian name so it’s oddly presumptuous to assume he is Russian. Anyway…thankfully for Russia and any other non-NATO country, Ukraine is busy blowing its own nation to bits.
How delightfully tolerant and enlightened. By the way, ‘whataboutery’ is essential to debate as it exposes often egregious hypocrisy, in this case concerning the USA and its illegal wars which were never condemned the way that Putin’s has been.
You can now go back to your Russian pay-master who can reward you for a job well-done in communicating his propaganda on western websites.
There is nothing wrong in whataboutism. The 1st known whataboutist was Jesus who asked “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?”
Yikes! Why don’t you tell us what you really think?!
No, this only applies to Russia and Russians. All other countries are angelic
Your beloved nation is historically unique in its centuries and centuries and centuries of sheer barbarism with only the briefest pause during the Gorbachev period. For his relative humanity he was, of course, despised by most other Russians.
I don’t agree with the way Sulio Pulev frames his argument, but do agree with his basic premise. War is horrible. The 20th century saw genocide snd the murderous killing of civilians on an horrific scale – on orders of Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and the leaders of so many other nations crushing hoped-for nations like Japan, West Pakistan, East Timor, Biafra and so many others. We tend too quickly to forget the tens of millions of murders committed as a result of the appalling actions of colonial powers in Africa, the partition of India, unauthorized wars in Cambodia and Laos, and the false reason for Congress approving war in Vietnam and the death of 3 million Vietnamese.
Were UK, Dutch, Belgian, French, US and artists from these and other warring countries banned from performing in other parts of the world as this killing continued? Almost completely the answer is ‘no’! Why then the double standards today, despite the dreadful atrocities Russia is imposing in Ukraine?
The war in Ukraine is entirely unnecessary; the rest you mention in your second paragraph were designed to throw off a malignant ideology; communism. Russia had communism and, despite running out of body bags, has gone back to Square 1.
Unfortunately your comment is completely wrong. Colonialism in all its forms was a means for western countries to rape and pillage the wealth of the colonized. When did, for example, the Dutch and Belgian governments fight off communism? Their colonies were fighting for the right to govern themselves. Same with Vietnam. Vietnam teamed up with the USA after Pearl Harbour and Ho Chi Minh’s forces fought alongside the Allies in WWII. Operatives of the OSS, the predecessor of the CIA, were then sent to work with Ho Chi Minh’s forces. Towards the end of that war, Ho wrote to both Roosevelt and Truman asking for assurance that the staunchly anti-colonial USA ensure the French did not return for their murderous colonial rule in Indo China so that Vietnam, like other colonies, could gain the right to rule itself. Despite the pressure the US put on other countries like the UK to get out of india and other colonies, neither US President agreed to insist the French get out of Asia. This had the direct result of Ho talking instead to Stalin. Read your history.
Besides, you totally fail to point out that Congress only authorised the Vietnam War based on a lie by Nixon and his cohorts. And while in Asia, it was the USA’s illegal invasion of Cambodia that opened the door to the very anti-communist Khmer Rouge and the consequent genocide of well over a million Cambodians. I regard the USA’s actions not merely as illegal and “unecessary”, they were repulsive.
Agree with much of what you say but the Khmer Rouge was far from “anti-communist” just anti-Soviet and competing with Vietnamese Communism. Throughly Maoist in ideology. And it was LBJ who lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 (not Nixon) which led to the congressional declaration.
Thanks for correcting my error re Nixon. It was his decision on the illegal incursion into Cambodia, not the lie that got Congress to agree to war with Vietnam.
USSR had socialism. Communism was the ultimate goal that was never achieved No country ever had communism.
When did Russia ever apologize for its many centuries of war crimes, invasions etc. or pay reparations to its victims the way post-Nazi Germany did and does?
Funny how this overall debate concentrates on Russia’s crimes (of which there are many) conveniently forgetting that without the help of Stalin, it is highly likely the Nazis would have taken over all of the European continent. The Russians lost over 25 million lives in the process – vastly more than other countries in what we then called Europe.
The debate also omits almost all mention of the USA’s propping up of murderous dictators only because it suited their foreign policy – Marcos in the Philippines, the Shah in Iran, Saddam during the horrific Iraq/Iran war, Sukarno in Indonesia, Pinochet in Chile etc. And that is before the realization that Iran might not have its dreadful regime had the USA, along with the British, not arranged to depose the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh and restored and backed the rule of the despised, murdering megalomaniac Shah!
Then there is the USA’s role in giving the green light to Indonesia invading East Timor and the resultant civil war that killed 200,000; another green light to West Pakistan to invade East Pakistan (around 1 million killed) etc., mindless decisions with the result that the USA’s actions only resulted in such massive loss of life and East Timor and Bangladesh eventually gaining independence as separate countries! For those doubters, look at the recently declassified documents proving that Suharto discussed his intended invasion of East Timor with Ford and Kissinger and both gave him the green light. In Jakarta the day before, Kissinger is even on record as saying, “Better if it is done after we returned” to the USA!
Was there a boycott of US artists as the US wielded its murdering axe? Silly question!
Netrebko has overtly indulged in pro Putin propaganda for years.
And, vocally speaking, she Is well after her prime.
So she should stay home.
You do know Netrebko holds Austrian passport, don’t you?
Which hasn’t affected her Putinism one iota. Austria should remove it in any case.
“You do know Netrebko holds Austrian passport, don’t you?” – so, does that wash off all her Russianness or what?
Ever heard of Oleg Tsaryov? Do Austrians usually support pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rferl.org/amp/opera-star-under-fire-for-backing-ukraine-separatists/26733809.html
A convenience passport granted due to her celebrity…not earned as it would be required by other non-Austrians seeking citizenship.
The fault rests on the shoulders of the administration of the Festspielhaus, for being sufficiently stupid in hiring the Netrebkos. They deserve what they sowed.
It’s not fair, Anna was against Putin’s war, but silenced by his tyranny. A true fan should be sympathetic and supportive. After all, she is a great artist, not a political subject.
She has been a fervent supporter of his from the moment he obtained power. Endorsed his election, slobbered over him etc. A truly authoritarian and thuggish sensibility as is typical of the vast majority of Russian people anywhere they live (which is why the vast majority in the U.S. are also Trump supporters).
No worries, mate, “Orange Man Bad” is not the President of the US, so a war with Russia/WW3 was/is happily prevented.
Oh wait…
The “vast majority” in the U.S. are most definitely not Trump supporters. He has a cult of about 1/3 of the country but most of us abhor him and all he stands for.
Agree on your points about Trebs though.
The “vast majority” I was referring to were only Russian-born people living in the U.S . Polls indicate their strong preference as well as the voting results in areas they heavily reside in or dominate. Just compare, for instance, Brighton Beach and nearby heavily Russian areas of South Brooklyn with most of the rest of Brooklyn (excluding Hasids, ultra-orthodox of course). Same in New Jersey etc. Was the same during the Ronald Reagan presidency – another war criminal that they worshipped.
Reagan was a war criminal? The greatest POTUS ever, according to Gallup (2011) poll?! No way…
OK, re-reading your point: Russians in the U.S. = Trump supporters. Yes, that does sound accurate.
You’re just assuming that Anna has the same freedom to say what she likes as a Russian. She hasn’t! She also has a family in the background who had nothing to do with the war no more than she had. She is governed by her tyranny. It’s a bit like prisoners being forced to make false statements or, in their case, suffer physical harm of the first degree. We do not understand the magnitude of this war, only what the television and newspapers are feeding us in their own way. Let Anna get on with what she was born to do – sing, and leave her alone. It’s a hard enough life being a singer and a pianist, and to do song recitals even more so, than have armchair experts pontificating that she’s wicked and evil.
Points taken, but it’s also that centuries of authoritarianism have inured Russians to violence and tyranny. Except for a minority of brave dissenters who’ve stood against tyrants. Read Solzhenitzyn.
She didn’t have to sign that ad endorsing his “re-election” a decade or so ago, pose in that photo with Ukrainian separatists, etc. These were all CHOICES that she freely made, not forced upon her .
To clarify “the vast majority” of RUSSIANS in the U.S. not the American population in general.
How she is “silenced by his tyranny? could you develop a bit?
Who, Netrobko? Are you kidding, Dian Jen? She is all proputin, gave money to terrorists – there are pictures of her with their flag, just google.
Tom Dotes, Anna Netrebko donated money to the Donetsk Opera because the musicians could not get money from their banks. (One million rubles which was $16,000 US.)The Guardian newspaper in England confirmed the story. A few days after the flag event she said she was handed the flag and didn’t know what it was. This was in 2014 before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Sure. Netrebko donated money to Russian separatists, who annexed Donetsk. She was active in Putin’s elections as his supporter. She also screamed in Russian, on the IG video (May, 2023) – ‘You can’t break Russians.. Russians are not giving up! We will break through!’. Just amazing. This phrase is so full of love, peace and artistic meanings!
Lina, If Anna Netrebko made those statements about Ukraine it would have been news around the world and her contracts would have been cancelled. I read news sources in the US and UK and I have not seen any comments like that from Netrebko. I also read her Instagram account using my Russian translator.
The Left usually calls this ‘victim blaming’. Stop with the hypocrisy; you know you want to!!
If shitty western politic invade classical music, that is eternal and apolitical, then we can assist of the funeral of the classical music as art. Thanks West, RIP culture, hooray political correctness!
Find a better translator, please. Also, when you inject adjectives like “shitty”, you’ve already lost your argument.
I want to support the people of Russia who have an unelected autocrat, but you’ve suddenly made that much harder.
Putin was elected as president of Russia by the Russian people. Unless you have someone else in mind.
Hey Boris: You’re late. It’s time to return to your gulag after a hard day of trolling.
Good! This should happen everywhere they perform both as a couple and as individuals.
Because she started the war and is continuing it? What kind of logic is that? What about the rest out there who supported wars all down the years?
And who are these western artists “supporting wars”, I don’t remember any endorsing the War on (not “in”) Vietnam, Iraq etc. Certainly there were many Nazi collaborators/sympathizers among German and Austrian artists in the 30s and 40s (and some English like Sir Reginald Goodall) and history rightly stigmatizes them.
The point I made is that it was the USA which was in many senses the aggressor in the wars and incidents I have listed. Did any country or concert promoters ban US artists because of the actions of their government, many of whom will have approved of its actions? I doubt it! So why the hypocrisy of blaming Russian artists for the actions of their government, whether or not they approve of those actions? A lot of double standards here.
History stigmatizes Boehm, Furtwangler, von Karajan and other Nazi sympathizers? Really? Most have forgotten that they played any roles in the Third Reich, that is if they even were aware of it!
I dont put Furtwangler in the same category as the other two (not really a “sympathizer” nor party member). Karajan’s reputation certainly DID suffer as a result of his opportunistic party membership and Bohm gets less attention just as he did in life. I don’t think anyone forgets their allegiances certainly Karajan’s is always mentioned.
Karajan suffered? And how come Walter Legge took him out of Germany after he’d been banned from giving concerts for 2 years by the Russian anti-Nazi tribunal? Legge persuaded the British that making recordings was not the same as public concerts. He then went on to make around 150 recordings with the Philharmonia, some magnificent. Very soon few will recall his double membership of the Nazi party!
You don’t put Furtwangler in the same category? There are far more video examples of his conducting in Berlin with huge swastika banners and Goebels sitting beaming in the front row than there are of Karajan with the Nazi insignia and hierarchy! Long after Karajan’s party memberships are forgotten, Furtwangler will forever be tainted by these vdos!
John Wayne was an ardent supporter of Vietnam War; writer John Steinbeck (Nobel prize in literature, 1962) supported it in his public statements. Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise endorsed Bush-43 on Iraq.
The protests should be first against the shamefully low level of their singing and then because of their politics. All the festival management cares about are ticket sales. Music is now more of a commodity than art. Vergogna!
Nothing beats fighting through an angry mob in order to hear the “concert of your dreams”! Come on! Give me a break already!
Pro-Ukrainian protest in Baden Baden was peaceful and lasted a few hours. The concert was a “success:” sold out.
https://bnn.de/mittelbaden/baden-baden/lautstarker-protest-anna-netrebko-singt-und-vor-dem-festspielhaus-laeuft-demo-weiter
There is too much hypocrisy here……going after artists such as Netrebko who is not part of the military yet these European countries are continuing to trade with Putin supporting his war machine empire.. sheer hypocrisy!
Apparently you haven’t noticed is classical music news site so we’re discussing classical music artists, like Netrebko.
This is more than ridiculous. How can one not to believe, that Mr. Stampa is a supporter of pro-Putin’s artists.
It’s as the pro-Ukrainian protesters came to the house like the wild animals???
He lives in some other dimension – it’s very fine that Frau Netrebko is supporting Russian separatists, who occupied a part of Ukrainian land, but it’s not ok, when some peaceful people come to protest against her with blue- yellow flags and Ukrainian songs.
People wake up! If some of you, who adore Putin’s beloved Anna would understand, what she is talking in her Russian IG videos. Or maybe those who buy the tickets, just don’t care.
Regards