The war continues, the boycott of the Russian singer Nětrebková is over. The Parisians applauded her

According to representatives of the Paris Philharmonic, the singer strongly condemned the war in Ukraine. The Milan Opera La Scala thinks the same, where a recital awaits Nětrebková this Friday, or the organizers in Madrid, Slovenia, Ljubljana, Germany, Regensburg, Cologne, Stuttgart or Hamburg, where it continues in the summer. By contrast, the New York Metropolitan Opera continues to insist on her performance.

Nětrebková was one of the first world-famous performers to whom Western institutions began to disrupt concerts due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The opera star, who lives permanently in Austria, refused to condemn the invasion. She said she did not intend to publicly express political views and defame the homeland. She shared a photo with another of Putin’s friends, conductor Valery Gergiev, who has also refused to distance himself since the war in Ukraine, and shared a post that vulgarly called her critics in the West “despicable human waste” and “the same evil as blind aggressors.” The soprano later deleted both posts.

After her career in the West began to fall apart, she condemned the war. “I expressly condemn the war against Ukraine and in my thoughts I am with its victims and their families,” she said. Using the word war, it deviated from the official Russian line, which calls the invasion of a neighboring country a “special military operation.” There is a threat of punishment for using the word war in Russia. On the contrary, Nětrebková did not mention Russian President Vladimir Putin, from whom she had previously received the National Artist Award, called on the Russians to elect him, and described him as an “extremely attractive man full of strength and masculine energy,” she told Newsweek.

Some opera houses concluded that the 50-year-old singer had distanced herself sufficiently from the Russian regime and renewed her contracts. The Monte Carlo Opera was the first to do so in April, entrusting it with the title role in Puccini’s opera Manon Lescaut.

In 2014, Nětrebková supported the annexation of the Ukrainian Crimea and later crossed the Russian side to occupied Donetsk, where she took a picture with the leader of the pro-Russian separatists and handed him a check for a million rubles. She defended it by saying that it was a contribution to the operation of the Donetsk Opera.

The singer talked about it again in a recent interview for the French daily Le Monde. She said she had done nothing wrong. “The only mistake was that I did not find out more about the situation on Donbas,” she said. “I was asked to speak out against Vladimir Putin. I replied that I had a Russian passport, that he was still president and that I could not speak anything like that in public. So I refused,” she added. it was praised by a representative of the russian government.

In the past, the singer also wore a St. George’s ribbon after performing at the Vienna State Opera, a symbol of Tsarist Russia, which the Kremlin began to promote again after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Deutsche Welle recalls.

Not all cultural institutions of Nětrebková’s opinion were convinced that Russia was critical. For example, the Metropolitan Opera in New York continues to insist that she not let the artist perform. For the time being, it has suspended all its contracts until May 2026. “Only when Anna can show that she has truly, completely and permanently cut herself from Vladimir Putin are we willing to enter into negotiations,” said Peter Gelb, director of the New York Metropolitan Opera.