Carnegie Hall and Dvořák’s Prague canceled Putin’s conductor’s concerts
The day after Russia invaded Ukraine, New York’s Carnegie Hall canceled a planned performance by Russian conductor Valeriy Gergiev. He has long been known as an ally of President Vladimir Putin, in addition to concerts in Georgia or Syria shortly after the Russian army intervened there.
Information brought Broadwayworld.com, the official reason is “recent world events”, spokesman Carnegie Hall said. There, 68-year-old Gergiev was to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra three times from Friday to Sunday, and was eventually replaced by Canadian Yannick Nézet-Séguin. In addition, the forty-six-year-old Russian pianist Denis Macuyev, who in the past praised Vladimir Putin for the Russian annexation of Ukrainian Crimea, will not perform as a soloist.
Gergiev’s concert on Thursday canceled Dvořák Festival Prague. “Given the historically verifiable background of Russian foreign policy and President Putin by conductor Valeriy Gergiev, we have decided to cancel his performance at Dvořák’s Prague 2022,” the organizers announced on Facebook.
According to New York Times New York’s Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra opposed calls to cancel the concerts for several days. “Culture must not be the subject of political controversy. Music is something that unites us, not divides us. We condemn all types of violence and war,” said only Daniel Froschauer, violinist and member of the Vienna Philharmonic’s leadership.
However, after Thursday’s Russian invasion of Ukraine, both the orchestra and the concert hall faced increased public pressure. Activists have started using the #CancelGergiev hashtag on Twitter or tweeted photos of a Russian chief conductor posing with President Putin.
New Yorkers have demonstrated against Gergiev in the past, for example when the conductor supported the Russian law against the so-called promotion of homosexuality.
Valery Gergiev has known Vladimir Putin since the early 1990s, when the future Russian president served at St. Petersburg City Hall and Gergiev next to the Mariinsky Theater there. Already as President, Putin set aside 14.2 billion crowns for the construction of the second theater building and repeatedly met with Gergiev at social events.
In 2008, at Putin’s request, Gergiev conducted a concert in the ruins of the northern Georgian city of Tskhinvali, from where the Russian army had ousted Georgian troops a few days earlier. Four years later, the conductor then put Putin’s candidacy for president in a television clip, and in 2014, in an open letter, gave his consent to the annexation of Crimea, prompting the Russian artist to do so.
“We have a common history, cultural background, spiritual roots and basic values and language with our compatriots in Crimea. We want them to have a hope for a bright future, and therefore we fully support the position of President of the Russian Federation,” the letter said. Shortly afterwards, Gergiev called the speeches of West Ukrainian politicians seeking the return of Crimea “mere fascist slogans” and added that they had no value because they were “shouted at by people who had lost control of their countries.”
In 2016, Gergiev conducted a Russian performance in Palmyra, Syria. It took place symbolically in the ruins of an amphitheater, where the Islamic State executed captured Syrians a few months earlier and subsequently conquered the government troops of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, supported by the Russian Air Force.
In addition to New York, Valery Gergiev now has to criticize in Milan, Italy, where he is to conduct Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades in mid-March.
Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala and Dominique Meyer, head of the local opera house La Scala, performed together on Thursday evening. They called on the conductor to condemn the Russian invasion, wrote diary of Corriere della Sera. “If he doesn’t, we’ll be forced to cooperate,” the mayor threatened.
However, according to the German DPA agency, Gergiev has not yet commented on the conflict. The Munich Philharmonic announced this for him, and its chief conductor is Gergiev since 2015.