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      Simon Stone Stages ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ at the Met Opera

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      A new production of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor,” directed by Simon Stone, sets the classic work in a fading postindustrial town.Simon Stone paused during a recent rehearsal at the Metropolitan Opera, looked up at the stage, and surveyed his new production of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor.” Nadine Sierra, singing the title role in a secondhand wedding gown, was preparing to descend the rusting fire escape of an old house for her famous, climactic mad scene.“She’s covered in blood at this point, so it won’t be as pretty,” Stone said, explaining how Sierra will look when the staging opens on April 23. “Or maybe it will be even prettier.”Pretty or not, this mad scene will be different than any “Lucia” — any production, period — in the Met’s history. Many directors have updated classic operas, like the company’s most recent “Rigoletto” stagings, set in 1960s Las Vegas and Weimar-era Berlin.But by transporting Donizetti’s bel canto tragedy to present-day America for his Met debut, Stone is breaking new ground. And risking boos: Luc Bondy’s 2009 “Tosca” is a reminder that playing around with the classics can infuriate a house that doesn’t welcome departures from tradition.“There is always a chance of upsetting people who don’t want to see something different,” said Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager. “I do think that over the years during my tenure, even the older elements of the audience have become more adventurous. That doesn’t mean everyone’s going to love it, but hopefully everyone is going to be stimulated.”The production features live film projected above the stage for a split-screen effect.Victor Llorente for The New York TimesAs Sierra slowly made her way down the fire escape, she was surrounded by fragments of a faded postindustrial town: a drab motel, a pawnshop, a liquor store with an A.T.M. to pick up cash for drug deals. Where the opera’s libretto depicts a decaying and desperate aristocracy in 16th-century Scotland, Stone has found contemporary resonances and turned the Met stage into something of a graveyard of the American dream — a landscape of opioid abuse, economic hardship and the last, dangerous gasp of white male power.Both Stone and Sierra are veterans of European houses, where a production like this wouldn’t be out of the ordinary; at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, for example, Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” has a similar look in David Bösch’s 2016 staging, with a group of older men exerting outsize control over their economically depressed community. And Peter Sellars directed distinctly American contemporary takes on Mozart in the 1980s. But the new “Lucia” is uncharted territory for the Met, and a test for traditionalists.“I hope people give it a chance and not be prejudiced before they are able to sense it a bit,” Sierra said in an interview. “Art is ever-evolving, and if we’re always stuck in the same thing, we’re only speaking about history; we’re not creating history.”BORN IN AUSTRALIA and now based in Vienna, Stone, 37, is best known to New Yorkers as a theater director who adapts classic texts about desperate women to mirror modern times. His “Medea,” which ran at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in early 2020, was a stripped-down portrait of a marriage in free fall. And when his unsparing and fluid treatment of Lorca’s “Yerma” — an argument for how the internet can make urban life feel as petty and small as the original play’s rustic village — traveled to the Park Avenue Armory in 2018, it attracted raves.It also caught Gelb’s eye. “I was enormously impressed by the magic of the production,” he recalled. “It was a tour de force of directing and storytelling.”The soprano Nadine Sierra, who is singing the title role, said, “I’ve never had a camera in my face before.”Victor Llorente for The New York TimesGelb approached Stone, who was then just emerging as an opera director, and they arrived at “Lucia,” which will not be the last of his productions at the Met. His staging of Kaija Saariaho’s “Innocence,” which premiered last summer at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France, is coming to New York in a future season. And Gelb said that they have also discussed a potential show created from scratch, in which Stone would serve as librettist and director.Stone’s opera résumé has leaned on 20th-century and contemporary works, such as Aribert Reimann’s “Lear,” Korngold’s “Die Tote Stadt” and, most recently, Berg’s “Wozzeck.” But having directed “La Traviata” in Paris in 2019 — transforming Violetta into a digital influencer — he said he was attracted to the classic Italian repertory because “there’s something so dramaturgically strong” about it.“I find with 20th-century opera, your job is to make it as accessible and clear as possible,” he said. “But with Italian operas, the music is so timeless and recognizable. It’s like Shakespeare: You’re not going to surprise people with what happens at the end of ‘Hamlet.’ What you can do then is really explore the contemporary relevance of these classics. So it’s a different job; you can flex your muscles as a director more.”Some might say that relevant art needs no updating because it registers regardless of context, the way a poem or novel can speak clearly across centuries. But Stone prefers to make those connections literal — in the service, he believes, of the audience.“The ‘marginalized’ men who used to be in charge, who now think they have to fight for their last shred of dignity — it’s a genuine problem in America,” Stone said of the context for his “Lucia” production.Victor Llorente for The New York Times“Opera is the most beautiful and total of art forms, and it sparks every fiber of your being as well as provokes all of your thoughts and fantasies,” he said. “And I don’t think that can really happen if you consider a distance from it and think, ‘That’s set somewhere else, at another time, and that’s not about me.’”Hence a “Lucia” for the age of white nationalist rallies and the Jan. 6 insurrection. “The ‘marginalized’ men who used to be in charge, who now think they have to fight for their last shred of dignity — it’s a genuine problem in America,” Stone said. “Everything’s changed: The economy’s fallen apart, and the ideas of masculinity have been turned upside down, and they act out and they create political mischief.”Caught between the conflicts of men like that is Lucia — her bully of an older brother, Enrico (Artur Rucinski), scheming to keep her from the man she loves, Edgardo (Javier Camarena), and forcing her to marry a more promising match against her will. Driven to murder by it all, she is, Stone said, “a woman trying to survive, to create a future for herself, to be independent, but being ground to dust by the patriarchy around her.”A COMMON FEATURE of Stone’s hyper-realistic opera productions is a turntable. His sets rotate, changing — sometimes drastically — with each revolution. At the Met, live film gathered by onstage cameras will also be projected above the action, giving the show a split-screen appearance to convey parallel stories and, increasingly, Lucia’s slipping sanity.Like many Stone productions, this “Lucia” features hyper-realistic sets.Victor Llorente for The New York Times“I’ve never had a camera in my face before, but I’ve always somehow been able to think of the acting onstage in a film-like way,” Sierra said. “Maybe that’s because as a kid I did theater. So this is marrying the two sides of me.”Flexible architecture is also crucial to Stone’s style. In Act II of his “Tote Stadt,” the house of Act I is shattered and surreally spread throughout the stage. Similarly, the town of this “Lucia” begins to match its protagonist’s mind, eventually arriving at a fragmented cluster of buildings in the mad scene.“The emotional impact of space is transformed continuously depending on what happens there and what angle we look at it from,” Stone said. “The most extreme version of that is when the architecture doesn’t make sense anymore: doors and staircases to nowhere, walking out of a food mart and into a living room.”Among his inspirations has been the dreamy illogic of Michel Gondry’s film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Opera, he said, should be the same: “If it’s going mad, it always feels weird for the production not to go mad.”Stone’s treatment of architecture, he said, comes from a belief that “the emotional impact of space is transformed continuously depending on what happens there and what angle we look at it from.”Victor Llorente for The New York TimesStone was still refining the details in recent rehearsals, with a meticulous eye on the speed of the turntable and whether one of the singers should be wearing a jacket instead of a cardigan. With such specificity, Gelb said, “it’s a show that’s going to keep the Met on its toes.”Still, Stone said, he eventually had to step back and make room for the music. The conductor, Riccardo Frizza, said that he was aiming to match the production by bringing out “the modernity of this score,” with a focus on transparency and emphases on certain words in the libretto. At the same time he, was also seeking to balance the orchestra’s sound to resemble the historically informed approach he takes at the Donizetti Festival in Bergamo, Italy, where he is the music director.When a performance snaps into place, Frizza said, the score’s enduring themes emerge naturally: “The way Donizetti builds the whole structure around Lucia from the beginning to the mad scene — he was a great man of theater, but also one important for showing us the whole face of a woman in this opera.”At the very least, her story speaks to the soprano portraying her. “I’ve been through things, like men trying to control my situation or break my heart or put me through a roller coaster of dominance versus being submissive,” Sierra said. “And that’s really what ‘Lucia’ is about.”Sierra, who has sung the role before, has found it easier to interpret in a contemporary setting. “It’s more natural than my trying to play someone from the 16th century,” she said. “Now I can do Lucia almost like playing myself. I think the audience is going to feel it a little bit stronger than my portraying a girl of the past.”That is among the reasons Stone hopes that those who come to see the show will not struggle with it. He went so far as to call the production conservative for its insistence on clarity.“I don’t think people need to be shocked by it,” he added, “and I don’t think anyone who is watching and listening to the music and being there in the moment, rather than stuck in the past in their mind, won’t have a great time. I’m a show person. I want the audience to have fun.” More

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      Metropolitan Opera’s Concert Honors Ukraine

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      A concert to benefit relief efforts featured a young Ukrainian singer, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” and the Met’s prima donna of the moment.Vladyslav Buialskyi stood center stage at the Metropolitan Opera, his hand on his heart, and sang the national anthem of his country, Ukraine.That was on Feb. 28, when the house reopened after a month off from performing and the Russian invasion of Ukraine was just a few days old. The company’s chorus and orchestra joined Buialskyi, a member of the Met’s young artists program, in a message of solidarity with him and his suffering people.Exactly two weeks later, on Monday, Buialskyi, a 24-year-old bass-baritone from the besieged port city of Berdyansk, stood center stage once more, his hand again on his heart, and sang the anthem with the orchestra and chorus.This time it wasn’t a prelude to Verdi’s “Don Carlos,” but the start of “A Concert for Ukraine,” an event hastily organized by the Met to benefit relief efforts in that country and broadcast there and around the world.Banners forming the Ukrainian flag stretched across the travertine exterior of the theater, bathed in blue and yellow floodlights. Another flag hung above the stage; a few in the audience brought their own to unfurl from the balconies. Seated in the guest of honor position in the center of the parterre, Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations, responded to an ovation at the start by raising his arms and making resolute V-for-victory signs.The Ukrainian bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi, a member of the Met’s young artists program, was featured in a performance of Ukraine’s national anthem.Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesThe Ukrainian flag hung above the Met’s chorus and its orchestra, led by the company’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin.Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesIt has been a trying time for the Met, which broke with Anna Netrebko, its reigning diva, over her unwillingness to speak against the war and distance herself from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.But the conflict has also given the company — still bruised by labor battles despite remarkable success staying open during the Omicron wave — a sense of unity and moral purpose. Who would have predicted a few months ago that the Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, broadly reviled within the ranks for imposing a long unpaid furlough on many employees during the pandemic, would get applause from some in the orchestra as he declared from the stage that they were “soldiers of music”?His remarks had a martial tinge, saying that the Met’s work could be “weaponized against oppression.” But much of the concert, led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the company’s music director, was consoling, with favorites like Barber’s Adagio for Strings, here fevered and unsentimental, and “Va, pensiero” from Verdi’s “Nabucco,” with its chorus of exiles longing for their homeland, “so beautiful and lost.” Most powerful was Valentin Silvestrov’s delicate, modest a cappella “Prayer for the Ukraine,” written in 2014 amid the Maidan protests against Russian influence.The soprano Lise Davidsen, the company’s prima donna of the moment, sang Strauss’s “Four Last Songs.”Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesRichard Strauss’s “Four Last Songs” wasn’t quite on message, with its autumnal vision of accepting death’s imminence. But it provided a vehicle for the Met’s prima donna of the moment: the young soprano Lise Davidsen, currently starring in Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos.”At opening night of “Ariadne” two weeks ago, Davidsen kept inundating the theater, seeming intent on proving just how much vibrating sound can flow out of her. It was thrilling, and a little much. At the performance of the opera on Saturday afternoon, she seemed consciously trying to restrain herself — even a bit tentative, fumbling a phrase in her opening aria and only gradually building to a true compromise of power and nuance.On Monday, Davidsen again seemed to be finding her way. Her high notes in the first of the “Four Last Songs,” “Frühling,” had a steely edge rather than soaring freedom; in “September,” she sounded muted in lower registers; and in “Beim Schlafengehen,” her phrasing was stiff. But she began “Im Abendrot” with a soft cloud of tone and proceeded with unforced radiance to an ending that felt light and hopeful.How the Ukraine War Is Affecting the Cultural WorldCard 1 of 7Olga Smirnova. More

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      On a Stage 5,000 Miles Away, He Sings for His Family in Ukraine

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      At the Metropolitan Opera, the bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi has become a symbol of his country’s struggles.Sometimes lately, when he hasn’t been rehearsing Verdi or Tchaikovsky at the Metropolitan Opera, or practicing Italian with a diction coach on Zoom, the bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi takes out his phone and sends a one-word text message: “Mama.”The message is meant for Buialskyi’s mother, who is more than 5,000 miles away in his hometown, Berdyansk, a small port city in Ukraine that has been under siege since the Russian invasion began last month. His mother has been unable to flee because she is caring for his grandmother, who is 88 and has difficulty walking. Anxious about his mother’s safety, Buialskyi sends her messages around the clock, awaiting the replies that confirm she remains safe and reachable.“It’s a huge nightmare,” said Buialskyi, 24, who is enrolled in the Met’s prestigious young artists program. “You wake up each day hoping it’s not real, but it’s still happening.”Since the start of the invasion, Buialskyi has become a symbol at the Met of his country’s struggles. On Monday, when the Met hosts a concert in support of Ukraine, he will be featured in a rendition of its national anthem. He played a similar role last month, at the outset of the invasion, when the chorus and orchestra performed the anthem before a performance of Verdi’s “Don Carlos.” Buialskyi — who was making his debut with the company in a small role that evening — stood center stage, his hand over his heart. Ukrainian news outlets later aired clips of the performance.Buialskyi, center, singing the Ukrainian national anthem with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and chorus on Feb. 28.Jonathan Tichler/Metropolitan Opera, via Associated Press“It was incredibly moving, because you could see how much it meant to him,” said Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager. “The fact that it was such an emotional experience for him made it even more emotional for me and the other members of the company.”Gelb said he hoped the performance of the anthem on Monday would “show the world and our audiences that we are in solidarity with Ukraine.”Buialskyi said he was uneasy about the attention. But he said he wants to use his platform to help his friends and family back home.“I hope it inspires people not to give up,” he said. “Even though I’m far away, I want to be doing what I can.”Buialskyi grew up in eastern Ukraine, along the Sea of Azov, in a city known for its beaches and its port, a hub for coal and grain exports. The only child of an accountant and a driver, he showed an early interest in singing. As a two-year-old, he mimicked jingles on television and sang Ukrainian folk songs.His mother initially had visions of sending him to a college specializing in automotive studies, worried about the career prospects for an artist. But she soon recognized his gift, and at 17 he began conservatory studies, practicing standards of the repertoire like “Largo al factotum,” from Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.” His idol was Muslim Magomayev, a pop and classical singer from Azerbaijan.He came to the Met in 2020 as part of its Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. The program’s participants take up tiny parts in Met productions, and this season Buialskyi is playing the role of a Flemish deputy in “Don Carlos” and a captain in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin.”Buialskyi rehearsing “Eugene Onegin” at the Metropolitan Opera.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesOne evening last month, on his way back to his apartment in Washington Heights after finishing up meetings at the Met, he got a call from his mother, who said she was hearing explosions. He checked news sites and soon realized that Moscow had begun invading Ukraine. Berdyansk is near the Russian border and was one of the first cities to be seized by Russian forces. Some citizens tried to resist the invasion by singing the Ukrainian national anthem, according to news reports.“I was just so scared,” Buialskyi said. “People who are not there right now still can’t believe that war is actually happening in our day and age.”His Met colleagues have rallied behind him, asking for updates on his family and donating to a crowdfunding effort he started to support Ukrainian families and soldiers. Russian artists at the Met have also reached out, he said, checking on his family’s safety.Melissa Wegner, the executive director of the Lindemann program, said she had been impressed with Buialskyi’s resolve in the face of trying circumstances.How the Ukraine War Is Affecting the Cultural WorldCard 1 of 5Anna Netrebko. More

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      Metropolitan Opera Will Host Concert in Support of Ukraine

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      “We want Putin to know he is the enemy of artists and that we are united against his horrific actions,” the company’s general manager said.The Metropolitan Opera said Monday that it would stage a concert in support of Ukraine next week in an effort to show solidarity with Ukrainians under attack, raise relief funds and express opposition to the invasion ordered by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.The concert — which will take place March 14 and be broadcast on radio stations around the world — will open with the Ukrainian national anthem and feature “Prayer for the Ukraine,” by the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, the Met said.“We want the people in Ukraine to know that the Metropolitan Opera and the artistic community are rallying together to support them,” Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said in an interview. “We want Putin to know he is the enemy of artists and that we are united against his horrific actions.”Other organizations are also planning events in the coming days in support of Ukraine. City Winery plans to host a benefit concert on Thursday. The American composer John Zorn and the New School’s College of Performing Arts will hold a concert on Friday, featuring the artist Laurie Anderson and the composer and pianist Philip Glass.The Met has repeatedly voiced opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since it began last month. The company announced it would no longer engage with performers or institutions that supported Putin. It parted ways last week with its reigning prima donna, the superstar soprano Anna Netrebko, who has ties to Mr. Putin, and said it would end its collaboration on an upcoming production with the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.The 70-minute program, “A Concert for Ukraine,” will include a performance of “Four Last Songs” by Richard Strauss, sung by the soprano Lise Davidsen; “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber; and the “Va, pensiero” chorus from Verdi’s “Nabucco,” which is about a love of homeland. The concert will conclude with the rousing final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, featuring the soprano Elza van den Heever, the mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, the tenor Piotr Beczała and the bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green.The Met’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, will lead the concert. He said in a statement that he hoped it would “demonstrate our unwavering support for the people of Ukraine.”“In times of crisis,” he said, “it is so important that artists unite and provide consolation and inspiration through our work.”The Ukrainian bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi, who stood center stage with his hand on his heart last month when the company sang the Ukrainian anthem before a performance of Verdi’s “Don Carlos,” will once again be featured during the anthem, this time singing a solo part.Tickets are $50 and go on sale on Wednesday. The Met said proceeds would go to charity groups supporting relief efforts in Ukraine. More

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      Anna Netrebko, Diva With Putin Ties, Is Out at the Metropolitan Opera

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      The Met said she would not appear for two seasons, and possibly more, after declining to comply with its demand that she repudiate her public support for Putin.Anna Netrebko, the superstar Russian soprano, will no longer appear at the Metropolitan Opera this season or next after failing to comply with the company’s demand that she distance herself from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as he wages war on Ukraine.The end of Ms. Netrebko’s engagements, which the Met announced on Thursday, came after the opera company, citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, said it would no longer hire artists who support Mr. Putin. While Ms. Netrebko has in recent days issued statements critical of the war, she has remained silent on the Russian president, whose re-election she has in the past endorsed.“It is a great artistic loss for the Met and for opera,” Peter Gelb, the company’s general manager, said in a statement. “Anna is one of the greatest singers in Met history, but with Putin killing innocent victims in Ukraine there was no way forward.”Ms. Netrebko did not immediately respond to a request for comment through her representatives.While the announcement on Thursday encompassed only two seasons, Mr. Gelb said in an interview on Thursday that it seemed unlikely Ms. Netrebko would ever come back to sing with the company.“It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which she will return to the Met,” he said.Ms. Netrebko’s break with the Met, where she has sung nearly 200 performances over the past 20 years and became the reigning prima donna, was a stunning turnaround for one of the world’s biggest opera stars. She has expressed support for Mr. Putin at times over the years, and in 2014 she was photographed holding a flag used by Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine.Her departure from America’s largest performing arts institution came amid a broader backlash against some Russian artists for their ties to Mr. Putin — one that has raised difficult questions about how far arts organizations should go in requiring public declarations from artists.Earlier this week, Valery Gergiev, the star Russian maestro who has long been closely associated with Mr. Putin, was removed from his post as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic after he refused to denounce the invasion of Ukraine.Mr. Gergiev has publicly supported Mr. Putin, including with concerts at home and abroad. In 2008 he led a concert in South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia, and in 2016 led another in Palmyra in Syria, after it was retaken by Syrian and Russian forces. His international performances have all but dried up since Russia invaded Ukraine.As criticism of Ms. Netrebko’s ties to Mr. Putin grew, she abruptly canceled appearances at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Zurich Opera and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany. Her public statements have alternated between condemning the war and saying it was wrong to ask Russian artists to denounce their government.On Tuesday, Ms. Netrebko posted a picture on Instagram of herself with Mr. Gergiev, smiling after a concert. Then, in a separate post, she wrote: “As I have said, I am opposed to this senseless war of aggression and I am calling on Russia to end this war right now, to save all of us. We need peace right now.” Both posts were later deleted.How the Ukraine War Is Affecting the Cultural WorldCard 1 of 5Anna Netrebko. More

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      Valery Gergiev and Anna Netrebko's Putin Ties Threaten Their Careers

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      The Russian conductor Valery Gergiev and the diva Anna Netrebko have lost engagements because of their ties to Putin, as geopolitics and music collide once again.A conductor, perceived to be aligned with the opposition in wartime, pushed from his podium in disgrace.Another, two decades later, offered a prestigious position, only to withdraw under pressure after protests of his ties to a despised foreign regime.The first, Karl Muck, a German-Swiss maestro, led the Boston Symphony Orchestra until he was arrested and interned, in what is now widely viewed as a shameful example of anti-German hysteria at the start of World War I.The profound musical legacy of the second — Wilhelm Furtwängler, who never joined the Nazi Party but was essentially its court conductor, dooming his appointment to the New York Philharmonic — still struggles to emerge from his association with Hitler.How will we think of Valery Gergiev a century from now?One of the world’s leading conductors, he has in just the last week lost a series of engagements and positions, including as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, for not disavowing the war in Ukraine being waged by his longtime friend and ally, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.The swift unraveling of his international career — and the decision of Anna Netrebko, a Russian diva who is one of the biggest stars in opera, to withdraw from performances amid renewed attention to her own ties to Mr. Putin — raises a host of difficult questions.What is the point at which cultural exchange — always a blur between being a humanizing balm and a tool of propaganda, a co-opting of music’s supposed neutrality — becomes unbearable? What is sufficient distance from authoritarian leadership?And what is sufficient disavowal, particularly in a context when speaking up could threaten the safety of artists or their families?Mr. Gergiev, with his quasi-governmental role as general and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, is closer to Furtwängler than to Muck. He has endorsed Mr. Putin in the past and promoted his policies with concerts in Russia and abroad. But when he has spoken — he has remained silent through this latest firestorm — he has tended to sound like Furtwängler, who longed to focus only on scores and said, “My job is music.”The legacy of the great conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler has been tainted by his association with Hitler.Teldec“Am not politician, but exponent of German music, which belongs to all humanity regardless of politics,” Furtwängler wrote in 1936, in clipped telegram style, withdrawing under pressure from the New York Philharmonic post.Classical music likes to think of itself this way: floating serenely above politics, in a realm of beauty and unity. Its repertory — so much of it composed in the distant past — seems insulated from present-day conflicts. What can Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony do except good?But politics and music — a field in which Russian performers have long been stars — have swiftly collided since the invasion of Ukraine. The Mariinsky Orchestra’s tours have been canceled. On Sunday, the Metropolitan Opera announced that it would no longer engage with performers or other organizations that have voiced support for Mr. Putin. Presenters in the United States, Germany, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands have announced the cancellations of performances by some artists who support Mr. Putin.Ms. Netrebko had engagements at the Bavarian State Opera canceled, and then announced that she planned to “step back from performing for the time being,” withdrawing from her upcoming dates at the Zurich Opera.The Russian diva Anna Netrebko and Mr. Gergiev appeared together with the Vienna Philharmonic in 2018.Lisi Niesner/ReutersThe artistic director in Zurich, Andreas Homoki, noted some of the complexities, welcoming a statement that Ms. Netrebko made opposing the war but suggesting that her failure to condemn Mr. Putin put her at odds with the opera house’s position. But Mr. Homoki took pains to note that his company did not “consider it appropriate to judge the decisions and actions of citizens of repressive regimes based on the perspective of those living in a Western European democracy.”In her first public statement on the war, in an Instagram post Saturday morning, Ms. Netrebko — who has long been criticized for her ties to Mr. Putin, and was photographed in 2014 holding a flag used by Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine — initially seemed to be issuing the kind of statement that had been lacking from Mr. Gergiev.“First of all: I am opposed to this war.” So far, so good.“I am Russian and I love my country,” Ms. Netrebko went on, “but I have many friends in Ukraine and the pain and suffering right now breaks my heart. I want this war to end and for people to be able to live in peace.”Though she conspicuously didn’t mention Mr. Putin, Ms. Netrebko’s words were simple and tender, a needle — love of her country and empathy for another — seemingly threaded.But unfortunately for those of us who have cherished her as a performer, there was more. In the next slide, she added that “forcing artists, or any public figure, to voice their political opinions in public and to denounce their homeland is not right.”“I am not a political person,” she wrote, echoing the Furtwängler perspective. “I am not an expert in politics. I am an artist and my purpose is to unite people across political divides.”She then added to her Instagram story, alongside heart and praying-hands emojis, a text that used an expletive in reference to her Western critics, and said they were “as evil as blind aggressors.”So much for threading the needle. And a series of posts over the following days, which were later deleted, only muddied the waters further.What could have smoothed over criticism instead inflamed it. The politically outspoken pianist Igor Levit, who was born in Russia, did not mention Ms. Netrebko by name in his own Instagram post on Sunday morning, but wrote, “Being a musician does not free you from being a citizen, from taking responsibility, from being a grown-up.”“PS,” he added: “And never, never bring up music and your being a musician as an excuse. Do not insult art.”Ms. Netrebko performs at the opening of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, in 2014.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesThe Met, where Ms. Netrebko is scheduled to star in Puccini’s “Turandot” this spring, seemed to have her in mind — along with a producing partnership with the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow — when it made its announcement on Sunday.“While we believe strongly in the warm friendship and cultural exchange that has long existed between the artists and artistic institutions of Russia and the United States,” the company’s general manager, Peter Gelb, said in a video statement, “we can no longer engage with artists or institutions that support Putin or are supported by him.”It’s true: Ms. Netrebko is not a politician, expert or otherwise. In this she is unlike Mr. Gergiev, who has repeatedly and explicitly worked as a government propagandist, leading battlefield concerts in South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia, in 2008, and in Palmyra after that Syrian site was retaken by Syrian and Russian forces in 2016. In Ossetia, he even led Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” Symphony, completed during the German siege of that city in World War II and as charged a musical memorial as there is to Russian suffering.Mr. Gergiev conducting in Palmyra, after the ancient city was retaken by Syrian and Russian forces in 2016.Olga Balashova/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, via Associated PressBut Ms. Netrebko is certainly a political actor — the kind of “political person” she denies being. Again and again in the past, she has voiced her political opinions, publicly if vaguely. (She said that she had been caught off-guard when she was handed the separatist flag in that 2014 photograph with a separatist leader, which was taken after she gave him a donation for a theater in a region controlled by separatists; that donation, she claimed at the time, was “not about politics.”)Ms. Netrebko can hold whichever flag she wants, of course. But she should not be surprised that there are consequences. In January 2015, after her Met performance of Tchaikovsky’s “Iolanta” under Mr. Gergiev’s baton, a protester climbed onto the stage during her curtain call and unfurled a banner that called them “active contributors to Putin’s war against Ukraine.”The Met, which opened a performance this week with the Ukrainian national anthem, has left vague the way it intends to police its new test. But I hope the company will look at the existing record rather than requiring new, public words from artists who may have legitimate reasons of safety to remain silent about Mr. Putin and his actions. Eliciting — coercing, some might say — affirmative statements hardly seems the right way to oppose authoritarianism.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4A city is captured. More

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      Metropolitan Opera Says It Will Cut Ties With Pro-Putin Artists

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      The decision comes as arts institutions seek to distance themselves from some Russian performers amid the invasion of Ukraine.The Metropolitan Opera said on Sunday that it would no longer engage with performers or other institutions that have voiced support for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, becoming the latest cultural organization to seek to distance itself from some Russian artists amid Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said that the Met, which has long employed Russians as top singers and has a producing partnership with the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, had an obligation to show support for the people of Ukraine.“While we believe strongly in the warm friendship and cultural exchange that has long existed between the artists and artistic institutions of Russia and the United States,” Mr. Gelb said in a video statement, “we can no longer engage with artists or institutions that support Putin or are supported by him.”Mr. Gelb added that the policy would be in effect “until the invasion and killing has been stopped, order has been restored, and restitutions have been made.”The Met’s decision could affect artists like the superstar soprano Anna Netrebko, who has ties to Mr. Putin and was once pictured holding a flag used by some Russian-backed separatist groups in Ukraine. Ms. Netrebko is scheduled to appear at the Met in Puccini’s “Turandot” beginning on April 30.Ms. Netrebko has tried to distance herself from the invasion, posting a statement on Saturday on Instagram saying she was “opposed to this war.” She added a note of defiance, writing that “forcing artists, or any public figure, to voice their political opinions in public and to denounce their homeland is not right.”It was unclear if her statement would satisfy the Met’s new test.The company’s decision will also likely mean the end of its collaboration with the Bolshoi, including on a new production of Wagner’s “Lohengrin” that is scheduled for next season. The Met was relying on the Bolshoi for the staging’s sets and costumes, but now it might have to change course.“We’re scrambling, but I think we’ll have no choice but to physically build our own sets and costumes,” Mr. Gelb said in an interview on Sunday evening.He added that he was saddened that the Bolshoi partnership, which began five years ago, would likely come to an end — at least for the moment.“It’s terrible that artistic relationships, at least temporarily, are the collateral damage of these actions by Putin,” he said.Understand Russia’s Attack on UkraineCard 1 of 7What is at the root of this invasion? More

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      The Met Opera Never Missed a Curtain. It Hopes Audiences Rebound.

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      On Saturday evening, if all goes as planned, the Metropolitan Opera will celebrate a milestone: reaching a long-planned midwinter break without having had to cancel a single performance, even as the pandemic created havoc backstage.As the Omicron variant spread through the city in December and January, the virus upended the Met’s operations, with at least 400 singers, orchestra players, stagehands, costume designers, dancers, actors and other employees testing positive, according to a snapshot of cases provided by the Met on Friday.But there are encouraging signs that at the opera house, as in the city, the recent surge has peaked and cases are falling dramatically again.During the first week of January, as cases were reaching new heights in New York, more than 100 employees at the Met tested positive, including six solo singers and five members of the children’s chorus. By last week, the total number of positive cases among the Met’s large roster of employees had fallen to 22, about the same number as in early December, and there have been eight positive tests so far this week.Peter Gelb, the company’s general manager, said that during the worst days of Omicron, he worried the company might run out of personnel and be unable to perform. But the Met’s strict safety protocols, which included vaccine and mask mandates and regular testing, provided some assurance, he said, that nobody would become seriously ill.“I knew that if we could just keep bringing in reserves, as well as getting people back to work as soon as they had cleared the quarantine period, we would be able to keep performing,” Gelb said. “Our struggle to keep the Met up and running in the face of Covid became a unifying force for the entire company as we battled a common enemy.”The Met never missed a downbeat or a curtain, even as the Omicron variant wreaked havoc across the performing arts — resulting in the cancellation of scores of Broadway shows, concerts and dance performances.The virus has taken a toll on attendance this winter, across the performing arts.On Broadway, just 62 percent of seats were occupied the week that ended Jan. 9; in the comparable week in the January before the pandemic, 94 percent of seats were filled. Last week, after many of the weakest shows closed and others reduced their prices, 75 percent of all seats were filled but overall box office grosses were down.At the Met, where 77 percent of seats were filled the week of Dec. 18, attendance dropped precipitously as the virus surged, bottoming out at 44 percent in mid-January, before beginning to rise again.Now the Met, the largest performing arts organization in the United States, will have some time to ride out the next phase of the pandemic: It is about to take a long-scheduled break from performing for much of February, before returning on Feb. 28 with a starry new production of Verdi’s “Don Carlos.”Putting on opera in a pandemic is not easy: The soprano Rosa Feola, right, wore a mask as she was fitted for a costume for “Rigoletto” designed by Catherine Zuber, left.Julieta Cervantes for The New York TimesThe company decided back in 2018 to institute a midseason break, long before the coronavirus emerged. The idea was to stop performing in the middle of winter, when sales are generally weakest, and to add more performances in the late spring, moving the end of the opera season to early June from May. The first midwinter break was supposed to take effect in the 2020-21 season — the season lost to the coronavirus.Now — as the recent surge in cases has left performing arts organizations facing alarmingly low attendance — the Met will have nearly a month off.The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 5Omicron in retreat. More