Enlarge image
Anna Netrebko and Valery Gergiev
Photo: Isa Foltin/Getty Images;
Andreas Gebert / dpa
Despite gloomy economic prospects due to the Ukraine war, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden wants to celebrate its 25th anniversary next year with seven festivals.
The controversial soprano Anna Netrebko should also be there.
She had been accused of being too close to the Kremlin in the course of the Russian war of aggression.
For artistic director Benedikt Stampa, Netrebko is part of the Festspielhaus family.
"We invite artists to Baden-Baden who do not explicitly support Putin," he explained the balancing act.
Another member of the "family" is not invited because of his closeness to Russian President Vladimir Putin: the Russian conductor Valeri Gergiev.
"There's no way we can do that at the moment," Stampa said.
But forgiveness is always possible;
the door was never slammed.
Netrebko distanced himself "explicitly" - later
At the beginning of 2022, numerous concerts with Netrebko in Germany were cancelled, including her performances at the Easter Festival in Baden-Baden.
Her German management from the Berlin agency Center Stage Artist (CSAM) separated from the singer in March.
After the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, Netrebko initially did not distance himself from Vladimir Putin.
It was not until a month later that she declared through her lawyer that she "expressly" condemned the war in Ukraine.
Valeri Gergiev did not distance himself from the Ukraine war either, not even when Munich's mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) gave him an ultimatum.
In 2014, he signed an artist's appeal for Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.
Because of his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Gergiev was finally dismissed from his position as chief conductor of the Munich Symphony Orchestra.
The privately operated opera house, with 2,500 seats the largest in Germany, was on the brink of collapse shortly after it opened in 1998.
Gergiev was one of those who remained loyal to the Festspielhaus.
For 24 years he was a regular guest there as artistic director and chief conductor of the Mariinsky Theater.
Shortly after the start of the Ukraine war, the Festspielhaus declared the end of the collaboration in March due to “lack of distance”.
isb/dpa
