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Ukraine: The Met Opera must pay Anna Netrebko $200,000 for her canceled concerts

2023-03-22T13:40:24.784Z


The singer will still have to pay a $ 30,000 fine for remarks “highly inappropriate”. Her husband, tenor Yusif Eyvazov has also been sidelined from the New York scene.


The Metropolitan Opera of New York was ordered in February to pay $200,000 in compensation to Anna Netrebko during an arbitration according to the

New York Times

.

The Russian-Austrian soprano believed that the New York institution was

"guilty of obstructing freedom of work."

Thirteen performances, including

La forza del destino

,

Don Carlo

and

Andrea Chénier,

were canceled due to the support of the singer's closeness to Vladimir Putin.

Anna Netrebko was fined $30,000 for

'highly inappropriate' remarks

after the invasion of Ukraine.

She had shared on social media that those who criticized her were "

as evil as blind abusers

"

.

"

There is no doubt that Anna Netrebko was a supporter of Putin, as she had the right to be

," said the labor arbitrator who examined the case, Howard C. Edelman.

He adds that this overt support for Vladimir Putin was not “

a moral turpitude, nor an act that deserved a sanction in itself

”.

The Met's contracts include a " pay or play

" clause

, obliging the institution to compensate artists whose performances are canceled.

The singer asked to receive 400,000 dollars in fees.

A sum lowered to 200,000 dollars because, according to Howard C. Edelman, part of the contracts had not been signed.

Among others for main roles in

Manon Lescaut

and

Tosca

by Puccini, as well as in

Macbeth

by Verdi and

The Queen of Spades

by Tchaikovsky.

Read alsoAnna Netrebko, starring at a festival in Germany, is once again controversial

pay or play

For its part, the management of the lyrical institution defended that the attitude of Anna Netrebko constituted a

“violation of the clause of conduct”

and that it therefore did not give the right to compensation.

"Although our contracts provide for the principle of 'pay or play', we felt that it was not morally justified to pay anything to Anna Netrebko, given her close ties with Vladimir Putin, said

Peter Gelb, chief executive of the Met, according to the

New York Times.

It's an artistic loss to the Met that she doesn't sing here.

But there is no way the Met or the majority of its public will tolerate his presence

.

Sam Wheeler, national executive director of the American Guild of Musical Artists, the union that represented the singer in the arbitration, welcomed the compensation demanded at the Met.

According to the organization, this decision helps to protect the rights of artists seeking compensation for canceled engagements.

"In the United States, the principle of 'pay-or-play' is the foundation of our collective agreements

," he said in a statement.

Read alsoAnna Netrebko claims $350,000 in compensation from the Metropolitan Opera

Yusif Eyvasov also fired

Anna Netrebko, who was one of the artists most in demand on opera stages before the invasion of Ukraine, has seen many engagements canceled on Western stages.

Just this month, in Taiwan, a concert was canceled at the last minute due to concerns about its ties to Vladimir Putin.

In 2012, Anna Netrebko had supported the candidacy of Vladimir Putin and had since expressed himself in glowing terms about him, especially at the time of the invasion of Crimea.

While many Russian artists have expressed their disapproval after the start of operations in 2022, Putin has retained significant support in the world of music and dance, which is central in Russia, where he has significant connections, particularly through the financing of

cultural institutions by the oligarchs.

The conductor Valery Gergiev, who makes and breaks careers in Russia, is one of them and he has seen, like Anna Netrebko, the cancellation of almost all of his engagements on Western stages.

Week after week, however, Anna Netrebko sought to distance herself from Russian power.

She first said that she had

"met Vladimir Putin only a few times"

and assured that she was

"not close to his government",

although she has since only used convoluted formulas on the ongoing conflict. .

At the same time, the singer saw some of her engagements canceled in Russia and others renewed in Europe, in Italy for example.

In the United States, where the weight - and the voice - of the patrons is capital in the budgets of the lyrical stages, the business is far from being finished.

On Friday, the Met announced that it would be without the services of Yusif Eyvazov, the city partner, and often on stage, of Anna Netrebko.

Among the grievances held against him, Peter Gelb recalls the positions of Yusif Eyvazov in a controversy affecting his half.

On the Verona stage in 2022, Anna Netrebko appeared with dark makeup, too dark for the taste of soprano Angel Blue who denounced an “

offensive, humiliating and racist”

“black face

.

According to the

New York Times

, the general manager of the Met also explained not wanting to disrespect the Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska, who will interpret the role of Tosca during four performances.

Source: lefigaro

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