Why Covent Garden is wrong to readmit cast-off diva

It is no secret that, for the past couple of years, Antonio Pappano has been pushing gently for the Royal Opera to re-engage Anna Netrebko, banned for her past affinities with Vladimir Putin. Pappano is a sentimental man who worked happily with Anna at Salzburg, but he is neither a policy maker nor a political philosopher.

So Covent Garden left it to his Czech successor Jakub Hrusa to insist on her reappearance next season. This is cowardly. Hrusa is Czech and has no skin in the big-power game. If Anna fails, or fails to show, he alone will carry the can.

Meanwhile, the political and moral imperatives are unchanged. Britain declared its support for Ukraine three years ago when Putin invaded. The British army has provided hardware and military training for Ukraine forces. The government has imposed sanctions on Russian assets, artists included. For Covent Garden to breach this line unilaterally – in spirit, if not in legal violation – is, in my view, against the national interest and demonstrably against the moral rule that aggressors should be punished. Simple, really.

The Netrebko case is more complex. The diva, 53, backed Putin’s first Crimea adventure a decade ago, senging money to his stooges (pictutred below). She also endorsed his phony election campaign. In 2022, after much hesitation, she issued a condemnation of the war – but not of Putin. She tried to sit on a fence and suffered anterior anguish in consequence. She is not today a Putin supporter – that error almost ended her career – but neither is she a defender of the rights of innocent Ukrainians to live in peace.

Rehiring her is a major mistake. Her appearance in London should be shunned at least so long as we want to be part of a free world. This is wrong, wrong, wrong.