Last-chance Netrebko files suit against the Met
NewsThe Russian soprano has filed suit against the Metropolitan Opera and its general manager Peter Gelb for cancelling her singing contracts. She is ‘seeking damages for national origin discrimination, defamation, and breach of contract.’ Her lawyer is The Law Offices of Julie R. Ulmet. They are demanding $360,000.
Netrebko claims that ‘due to the Met’s requirement that Netrebko issue public statements opposing the actions of Russian government…, Netrebko and her family and friends in Russia have suffered the risk of harm, retaliation, and retribution by the Russian government.’
The risk, such as it is, appears to be small. Her husband, Yusif Eyvazov continues to be welcomed in Russia as a performer. Her close relatives have left. There is little objective evidence to support this
pecuniary claim.
“The risk, such as it is, appears to be small. Her husband, Yusif Eyvazov continues to be welcomed in Russia as a performer. Her close relatives have left. There is little objective evidence to support this
pecuniary claim.”
Since when are you also a judge??
Very good question!
I don’t remember the MET asking Americans for a statement when killing hundreds of thousands on the other side of the world without a real reason!! Shame on them!
I think Netrebko may have a case. Being close to Putin if she publicly denounced the war things could change very quickly for her. She would be forced to leave her country of birth and settle permanently in the west. The fact her nationality is Russian means the MET are forcing her to pick a side which singers from other nations do not have to do
Cf. Karl Muck in Boston, 1917.
She’s a resident of Austria, and she did denounce the war. But she’s being pressured to directly denounce Putin – which up to now she has resisted doing.
She denounced the war with a post using a picture of her holding hands with Gergiev and the hashtag #friendship. Absolutely disgusting. When she finally clued into the seriousness of the situation, and released a second statement condemning the war it is understandable people are doubtful of her sincerity.
Her sincerity… really?
What have you done lately to condemn publicly atrocities in the world which you didn’t create or cause?
She is an opera singer, correct? And is loyal to her past relationship with Valery Gergiev, who was a crucial mentor in the early years of her carreer. Is that bad?
It must be very difficult for her to navigate in this world of entitled – only by opinion, not entitled by own deeds – western moral armchair dwarfs and “Wadenbeisser”.
Small minds of this world, please humble yourself.
Thank you.
Legally, the MET have no right to demand any political allegiance, unless this is part of her terms of employment. If this is why she has lost her contract, then she in fact has a case.
Exactly. It should be an easy case, if the rule of law is still alive. And MET even knew that, they cancelled anyway in a rational weighing of the PR damages in case she sings, against a later court ordered payout. They simply couldn’t let her sing, being surrounded by the hysterical bigots and masses of moral midgets in NY.
Not sure why this comment has so many ‘thumbs down’. All the writer has done here is state a simple legal fact. Please separate: a) what you disagree with from: b) what you personally happen to dislike.
She is also Austrian. She has lived in the west for well over 25 years. Her son holds Austrian citizenship. Netrebko’s career has predominantly been in the West. That is where her money making has happened. This would hardly be a banishment from Russia as she hasn’t lived there for ever. She had no problem saying she wished she had been Putin’s lover or that she supported the annexation in 2014. She made herself political when it worked for her. And don’t be saying art isn’t political. Art IS political. Plenty of places are happily hiring her. America isn’t. The Met asked her to denounce the war, she didn’t, there was fall out from that. Had she never praised Putin, the request would be something else all together. But she put herself in the political sphere. And she left New York and sold two penthouses to get an even larger penthouse in Vienna. She’s doing just fine, in the West.
Me thinks the circumstances are different—has Denmark invaded Norway?
Donna Anna is also a citizen of Austria and has lived, by her own choice, outside Russia for a very long time.
Return vists to Krasnodar of late are as rare as her singing with accurate intonation.
She has always had poor intonation.
Boy, what a shame.
” if she publicly denounced the war things could change very quickly for her ”
This is utter rubbish!
She is living in Vienna.
Good luck to win a case in the USA!
Who gives a toss about her anyhow?
Her voice is long gone and she only cares about money.
There’s plenty of good singers about
eg. Lise Davidsen who doesn’t have all that hype floating around her.
Angela Gheorghiu is only 6 years older but was singing at the met in april…..with all the fun and games that goes with that!
…and you’re just bitching infinitum…
Unless I’m mistaken, for many years now Ms. Netrebsko has chosen to change her country of residence.
I’m no fan of Gelb, but in this case, he is correct. It would be a slap in the face to the US if he had continued to offer Ms. Netrebko employment.
Everyday single day when I read of the unspeakable atrocities in Ukraine, my resolve is strengthened.
The issue isn’t whether “things could change for Netrebko” but whether the Met had the right to invoke a clause of their contract to ask her to denounce the war.
She did experience some ostracising I believe, sent to remote outposts of Russia for concerts. Don’t forget she holds Austrian citizenship by the way…
“The Met’s requirement that Netrebko issue public statements opposing the actions of Russian government”
That is a case. And a good one, depending somewhat on the contract.
I assume millions used in lawyers, and the case of James Levine, has not been enough for the Met to learn a thing.
Still, at least there is something interesting going on, in the absence of great singing.
https://youtu.be/wzksCWuq5KE
Wobbly, out of tune and occluded. Just as poor is her affinity for war criminals, authoritarians and dark money oligarchs. If she truly means that she is against the war in Ukraine, I suggest that instead of entertaining the Verona tourists she should instead show up in Odesa or Kyiv, opportunities she could use to raise funds for victims of her dear leader’s crimes. After all, she knows how to raise funds, doesn’t she? Recall her fundraising activities in concert with Donbas separatists. But don’t wait for it to happen. She has her agent and publicists doing damage control, covering her deceptions and trying to shape public opinion. Their latest move is to place fault with the Metropolitan Opera and Peter Gelb, when all they have to do is place a mirror before their client so she takes a close look to see who brought all this on her person, on her own. And then, of course, are the facts stated in the opening sentence.
You’re overlooking the fact, Norman, that legally, she may well have a case. Depending upon what her employment conditions are, IF she has been dismissed directly because she refused to state her political views, then this goes against the constitution that she is entitled to free speech – and for that matter – free to say nothing at all.
…All these people ‘disliking’ what are ostensibly the legal facts… oh, boy, what a bunch of trolls we have here… people who cannot separate FACTS from prejudice.
That’s racist, that speech bubble. In your wildest imagination can you think of anybody getting away with that for any minority group??
Gelb was very wrong to use the MET as a political weapon. Justice would be him paying out of pocket.
Why only $360,000? Should be at least $5 million. She has learned nothing from her time in America.
Russian dissident, Alexei Navalny, was just assigned another 19 years in prison. This after the Putin government tried to poison him. Ironically, to deny the dangers of dissent in Russia undermines the West’s war effort. The Met’s behavior toward Netrebko was tinged with ethnic vindictiveness. I hope the courts will say this is not a part of American society and culture. We must keep our war efforts, and our efforts toward peace, based on more noble human values.
She definitely has a case.
There are photos of her in Donbas with separatists. That the MET want assurances that this time round, during a war they do not employ an artist who is possibly hobnobbing with Putin and doing further photo oops in occupied territories, while the American government is supporting Kyiv, makes total sense.
Yes those photos. Was a big mistake of hers. Even though I get why she got angry about the western propaganda narrative about the Donbass conflict. Because it was a conflict that had no winners and happened on the background of the US pumping over 5 billion US $ into Ukrainian anti Russian opposition (on protocol by “Fuck the EU” Victoria Nuland), in order to further destabilize the country and prepare it for US hegemony and strategic eastward expansion.
Ask people who really know, like Henry Kissinger, and they will tell you the same.
The fake moral outrage about Netrebko is so ridiculous and hypocritical in proportion to the geopolitical machinations behind that conflict and now war.
Not true. The photo was taken in Saint Petersburg after the performance at Mariinsky. She was said that artists and all employees from Donetsk Opera House are starving. And due to the magazine Guardian, this money really helped to survive the artists and employees of the opera house there. Read the article from 2015.
She has a good case, especially regarding breach of contract; she’s already been awarded $200,000 by Howard C. Edelman in an arbitration case against the Met that was settled in February 2023. That precedent will strengthen her bargaining power and could lead to an out of court settlement, which would be perhaps the preferred option for both parties.
The Met is doing her a favour. If she appears on that stage, she will be hollered and sent packing!
Indeed. We will be spared the wobbly, throaty and off-pitch ”singing” with not art to compensate. She will benefit from not having to scream her head off.
True. By people who own stocks in the US military industrial sector who just helped to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq and other illegal wars.
What a wonderful world!
What impeccable moral authority!
Interesting that her lawyers (and her) would write in a filing that she “suffered the risk of harm, retaliation, and retribution *by the Russian government*”, which would mean that she does believe the Russian government engages in that type of activity. Doesn’t THAT claim put them at risk? Isn’t that throwing egg at Moscow’s face? I wonder how the Russian authorities will react.
Eyvazov not only travels freely to russia but he opened the season at Bolshoi last fall (in Pikovaja Dama) and in December gave a big pop concert at Crocus Hall in Moscow. A sure sign of persecution from russian goverment. As for family, her parents are dead and her only sister has been living (from 1993) in Denmark (she was one of those “russian brides”). She travels freely to their hometown of Krasnodar – she has been there twice since the outbreak of war, staying several months at time. Another sure sign of persecution. What’s more, the russian press reports on her every move, writing about her with increasing sympathy (after all, she’s our russkaya diva). So undoubtedly she is in terrible danger hehehehehehe. One can die from laughter
What a nasty comment…
The closest family friend of the Netrebkos sat on the jury of the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow last month, for good pay. Huge risk, it much be.
Yes, facts hurt the worst.
Is he still cheering on Azerbaijani massacres of Armenians?
Little objective evidence? Really? As if the claim isn’t first and foremost about contracts. Allow me to quote The Guardian: “The American Guild of Musical Artists filed a grievance on Netrebko’s behalf and arbitrator Howard Edelman ruled in February that the Met violated the union’s collective bargaining agreement when it canceled deals with Netrebko to appear in Verdi’s Don Carlo and La Forza del Destino and Giordano’s Andrea Chénier. He awarded her compensation for the lost performances, which the union calculated at $209,103.48.”
I’m not a fan of Netrebko, but unless her contract had some provisions about supporting dictators or wars of conquest, she has a point. And if the Met wants to jump on the barricades after everybody is already there, it should accept the consequences. Otherwise it’s just cheap virtue signaling.
I have absolutely no legal expertise, and thus no opinion on the merits of the case. I defer to nobody in my loathing of Putin, and horror at the Russian atrocities. But I was troubled from the start at the prospect of (as I understand it) requiring a statement of condemnation from Netrebko as a condition of employment. Once you start requiring loyalty oaths, you are on a very slippery slope.
It s not a loyalthy oath, it s a moral demand.
If AN would have perceived USA as an undemocratic country, may be she would make a loyalthy oath. But since she is suing, by this she’ s recognaising USA as a democratic country in which”she wouldn t be put at risk” because she is sueing.
where are those who are comparing all fhe time Russia aggression and regime with USA aggression and regime?
This is going to come down to “freedom of speech”. She will win her case if it comes to this. Her words (or lack thereof) and positions may be despicable…but, in a court of law, that doesn’t matter.
She and Gelb actually deserve each other. That assclown aparantly wanted to make the MET musicians use per diem for water on their recent tour. Good grief!
Why would they not use per diem for water? That’s exactly what per diem is for. Entitled princes and princesses.
Hardly morally equivalent. Gelb is completely in the right on this one
Under another article, I said that I am not binning David Daniels’ disc of Handel arias just because the artist happens to be a disgusting criminal. It is easier with Miss Netrebko, Mr Currentzis, Maestro Rieu, avvocato Bocelli: I don’t have anything that I could possibly toss.
The union arbitrator awarded Anna Netrebko $200,000 for contracts that had been signed. He left open “whether the Met’s termination of certain other contracts may have violated state law,” according to Netrebko’s attorney It is also possible to be compensated for severe anguish and emotional distress, but the lawyers will debate that. US law is confusing because it involves Federal law plus the different laws of 50 states.
It is is the author’s hubristic conceit that anybody could care less whether Slipped Disc is watching – in racist, pidgin English or otherwise.