Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2022)

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      Stars Show Support for Ukraine at Critics Choice Awards

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      Most of the Critics Choice ceremony has been focused on prizes, but the war in Ukraine has been addressed in a few ways.Most notably, the Oscar-nominated actress Maria Bakalova, known for her breakout role as Tutar Sagdiyev in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” took time on Sunday night — before announcing the best supporting actor award — to recognize the people of Ukraine.“I’m from Bulgaria, and my home city’s just a few hundred miles away from Ukraine,” Bakalova said. “So as we gather together on this special night, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the bravery of the people of Ukraine who are defending their right to independence and democracy.“I truly hope that we will come together and usher in a new era of cultural and artistic exchange between Eastern Europe and Hollywood, which has been a foundational force of creativity in the 20th century,” she continued. “So I hope my message goes to the Ukrainian people: We see you. We stand with you. And our hearts are with you.”Bakalova is from Burgas, the fourth-largest city in Bulgaria, which sits less than 750 miles from Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Earlier on Sunday, Russia launched airstrikes against a military base in western Ukraine, bringing the war 11 miles from the border with Poland.Billy Crystal, the recipient of a lifetime achievement award, also brought up his roots in the region, explaining that his grandmothers were from Odessa and Kyiv and fled to the United States to escape pogroms. When he was growing up in Long Island, “their laughter — the first laughs I ever got in my life — is the fuel that my engine is still burning today,” he said, and added, “I pray that somehow, some way, there can be laughter and joy in that part of the world once again.”The “Ted Lasso” star Hannah Waddingham, accepting best comedy series on behalf of the cast, spoke of “the babies in the Ukraine that are being utterly decimated at the moment from this putrid, putrid torrent of abuse. Please, think of them as much as you can, and give as much as you can.”Before presenting the biggest award of the night, best picture, the Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay handed the mic to his fiancée, a Realtor, Veronika Khomyn, who is from Ukraine. “I proudly stand with my fellow Ukrainians and I admire their strength,” she told the crowd. “They have faced unimaginable adversity with such profound grace and bravery. Their fight and the way they have united the world is truly inspiring. There is no place in our world for this kind of violence, and our prayers go out to all the lives that have been lost.”There were also a handful of performers — including Jeremy Strong of “Succession” and the “White Lotus” actor Murray Bartlett — bearing blue-and-yellow pins, mirroring the national colors of Ukraine. 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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      An Exiled Theater With a Warning for Europe

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      The Belarus Free Theater’s members fled repression at home. The company’s latest show imagines a nightmare future of authoritarian Russian rule.LONDON — When the players of the Belarus Free Theater began working on “Dogs of Europe” three years ago, they thought it was a play about a dystopia.Set in 2049, it imagines the continent cut in half by a wall. On one side sits a Russian superstate, where a dictator has eliminated almost all opposition, and where people cannot speak their native languages or even perform folk dances. On the other side sits a Europe that failed to realize the Russian threat, or stop it from absorbing Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic States and beyond.Yet at a rehearsal in London last month, the day before Russia invaded Ukraine, the play’s nightmare world didn’t feel so far-fetched.Maryna Yakubovich, an actor in the production, which opens Thursday at the Barbican theater in London, said that rehearsing the play had sometimes felt like a premonition. “It’s, like, ‘Oh my God, it’s started to happen,” she said.Nicolai Khalezin, left, and Natalia Kaliada, founders of the Belarus Free Theater.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesNatalia Kaliada, one of the Belarus Free Theater’s founders, said that when she and her husband, Nicolai Khalezin, decided to stage the play, they thought it would be a “warning shot” about the dangers of undemocratic leaders left unchecked. But planned performances in London and New York in 2020 were postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Now that warning shot appears to be too late.As the war in Ukraine enters its third week, the Belarus Free Theater’s performance may seem accidentally timely. But it is only the company’s latest attempt in its 17-year existence to warn about rising authoritarianism in Eastern Europe.The company knows those dangers all too well. Since forming in 2005, it has faced repression in Belarus, which is ruled by President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, who is known as “Europe’s last dictator” in part for his government’s clampdown on opposition and its stifling of free expression. The troupe has long been effectively banned from performing in Belarus, but it continued to do so in secret venues in Minsk, the capital, even after Kaliada and Khalezin were forced into exile more than a decade ago. The couple settled in London — where they developed close ties to theaters including the Young Vic and the Almeida — but continued rehearsing with actors in Belarus via Skype.Those clandestine shows, in venues including a converted car garage that once belonged to the American Embassy, also won the troupe high-profile supporters in the United States. In 2015, The New York Times’s chief theater critic, Ben Brantley, visited the company in Minsk, and praised its “spirit of defiant, exultant fraternity” adding that this was something “you rarely find among the young these days in money-driven, shockproof Manhattan.”A rehearsal of “Dogs of Europe” in London this month.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesNow, even that window to perform in Minsk has closed. The theater’s entire 16-member acting troupe fled Belarus last year to avoid potential jail time for opposing Lukashenko’s regime.The Belarus Free Theater was now homeless, Kaliada said. “We are refugees.”She added that she had hoped its members would be granted asylum in Britain, so they could set up a refugee-led theater there, but the process can take years and asylum applicants are almost always banned from working. After its four-performance run at the Barbican, the company would most likely set up base in Warsaw, a city with numerous refugees from both Belarus and Ukraine, Kaliada said, but added that a final decision had not yet been made.The company’s finances are precarious, Kaliada said, though she had a clear vision for the future. As well as finding a performance space, the company would establish a school where its members could give acting classes to refugee children, she said. All of its future plays would be live-streamed back to Belarus, so the company would keep reaching people there.“It’s a pretty tough time,” Kaliada said. “We’re trying to solve many issues at once.”The company’s experiences over the past two years show how quickly fortunes can change in Eastern Europe. In August 2020, Belarus — a country of some nine million people — looked on the verge of a turning point after Lukashenko declared victory in a vote widely dismissed as fraudulent, leading to mass street protests. It was a “beautiful, powerful,” moment, Kaliada said: It felt like her country was waking from a bad dream, she said.Then a brutal police crackdown against the protesters brought those hopes to an end.Sveta Sugako, left, the Belarus Free Theater’s production manager, and Nadia Brodskaya, its general manager.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesSeveral of the company’s actors were arrested during the period of repression around the election. Sveta Sugako, the company’s production manager, said she spent five days in prison in a tiny cell with 35 other women. None of them were given any food or drinking water for three days, she added. After Sugako refused to sign a confession saying she had taken part in the demonstrations, a police officer grabbed her and choked her, she said.Sugako said she had not wanted to leave Belarus, even after that experience. “I was ready to sit and wait in jail,” she said, but other Belarus Free Theater members persuaded her to go, pointing out that the company had no future if all of its actors were behind bars.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4On the ground. 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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      Pressed About Putin, Russian Conductor Quits Bolshoi and French Posts

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      The Bolshoi music director, Tugan Sokhiev, said he was “asked to choose one cultural tradition” over another and denounce President Putin for invading Ukraine.A prominent Russian conductor said on Sunday that he would resign from his positions with two orchestras — at the storied Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and in Toulouse, France — after facing intense pressure to condemn President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.The conductor, Tugan Sokhiev, had faced demands from French officials that he clarify his position on the war before his next appearance with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse later this month. In his statement on Sunday, in which he said he would “always be against any conflicts,” Mr. Sokhiev said he felt he was being forced to pick between the two ensembles.“I am being asked to choose one cultural tradition over” another, Mr. Sokhiev said in the statement. “I am being asked to choose one artist over the other.”Both in Toulouse and at the Bolshoi, he wrote, he regularly invited Ukrainian artists. “We never even thought about our nationalities,” he wrote. “We were enjoying making music together.”Officials in Toulouse, where Mr. Sokhiev has served as music director of the orchestra since 2008, said they were saddened by his decision. They denied pressuring him into picking between Russia and France.“We never expected or, worse, demanded that Tugan make a choice between his native country and his beloved city of Toulouse,” the mayor of Toulouse, Jean-Luc Moudenc, said in a statement. “It wouldn’t have made any sense. However, it was unthinkable to imagine that he would remain silent in the face of the war situation, both vis-à-vis the musicians and the public and the community.”In his statement, Mr. Sokhiev said that “being forced to face the impossible option of choosing between my beloved Russian and beloved French musicians I have decided to resign from my positions” at both the Bolshoi in Moscow and Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse “with immediate effect.”Mr. Sokhiev’s decision comes during a tense moment in the performing arts, as some cultural institutions are putting pressure on Russian artists to distance themselves from the war and Mr. Putin. Some artists have been caught in the middle, eager to maintain their international careers but worried they could face consequences at home for denouncing Mr. Putin.Some institutions in the West have demanded that Russian artists issue statements against Mr. Putin as a prerequisite for performing. Others are examining social media posts to ensure performers have not made contentious statements about the war. Several organizations have dropped Russian works from their programs, including the Polish National Opera, which recently canceled a production of Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov.”Mr. Sokhiev, who was born in 1977 in the Russian city of Vladikavkaz, near the border with Georgia, and was the principal conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin until 2016, is as of now still scheduled to appear with the New York Philharmonic starting on March 31.Mr. Sokhiev declined a request for comment from The New York Times. The New York Philharmonic did not immediately comment on his statement, in which he said he was concerned that Russian artists were facing discrimination.He wrote in the statement that he could not bear “to witness how my fellow colleagues, artists, actors, singers, dancers, directors are being menaced, treated disrespectfully and being victims of so called ‘cancel culture.’”“We musicians,” he added, “are the ambassadors of peace.” More

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      Russian Filmmakers and Other Artists Face Boycotts Over Ukraine

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      A Russian moviemaker with Ukrainian roots and relatives in Kyiv denounced the war. The Glasgow Film Festival dropped his film anyway.The Russian filmmaker Kirill Sokolov has spent the past week distraught at the horror unfolding in Ukraine. Half his family is Ukrainian, he said in a telephone interview, and as a child he spent summers there, staying with his grandparents.His maternal grandmother was still living in Kyiv, he said, “hiding from bombs in a bunker.”Since Russia’s invasion began, Mr. Sokolov said he had signed two online petitions calling for an end to the war, an act that carries a risk in Russia, where thousands have been arrested for protesting the conflict, and some have reportedly lost their jobs.Yet despite his antiwar stance, Mr. Sokolov on Monday learned that the Glasgow Film Festival in Scotland had dropped his latest movie, “No Looking Back.”A spokeswoman for the festival said in an email that Mr. Sokolov’s film — a comedy about a mother and daughter trying to kill each other — had received Russian state funding. The decision to exclude the movie was not a reflection on the filmmaker himself, she said, but it would be “inappropriate to proceed as normal with the screenings while the assault on the Ukrainian people continues.”As the war in Ukraine enters its second week, cultural institutions worldwide are grappling with the question of whether to boycott Russian artists, in debates reminiscent of those around South Africa during the apartheid era, and calls by musicians, writers and artists to shun Israel in support of the Palestinian people.Kirill Sokolov at a 2021 Moscow event for Russian filmmakers seeking state funding for their projects.Mikhail Tereshchenko/TASS, via Getty ImagesMost attention has so far focused on figures close to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, including the conductor Valery Gergiev and the diva Anna Netrebko, both of whom lost engagements at concert halls and opera houses this week. On Tuesday, the Munich Philharmonic fired Mr. Gergiev as its chief conductor.But measures are also being taken against Russians with no apparent ties to their leader. In Britain — where a government minister this week published an opinion essay calling culture “the third front in the Ukrainian war” — a Russian state ballet company from Siberia and an opera troupe had multiple performances canceled.On Monday, the Glasgow Film Festival also dropped “The Execution,” by Lado Kvataniya, a Russian director whose work has been censored in Russia and who last week posted online about his opposition to both the war and Mr. Putin. (A representative for Mr. Kvataniya declined to comment for this article.)Festival organizers and movie executives have been considering protest actions since shortly after Russia’s invasion last week, when the Ukrainian Film Academy launched an online petition calling “for a boycott of Russian cinematography.”The petition, which had over 8,200 signatures on Friday, says screenings of Russian movies at festivals create “the illusion of Russia’s involvement in the values of the civilized world.” It also urged distributors not to work in Russia. Several Hollywood studios, including Disney, have paused releases there, and a Netflix spokeswoman said Friday that the streaming service had halted all future projects in Russia, including acquisitions.Mr. Sokolov, the Russian director, said he accepted the Glasgow festival’s decision, though he found it “really strange.” Many Russian filmmakers are critical of Russian society and politics, he said; if festivals outside Russia stop showing their work, “it’s like they shut our voice down,” he added.“Probably 99 percent of Russian movies” receive funding from the Russian state, Mr. Sokolov said. “It’s very difficult to make a movie here without government sponsorship.” That includes many that are veiled — or even unveiled — critiques of life under Mr. Putin.Several small film festivals have acted on the Ukraine Film Academy’s call, including the Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia and the Vilnius International Film Festival in Lithuania, which on Monday dropped five movies from its program. One of them is the award-winning “Compartment No. 6,” by the Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen, which also received Russian funding. Mr. Kuosmanen said in a telephone interview that he accepted state investment in his Russia-set movie to ease bureaucratic difficulties. He understood the festival’s decision, and said he was “happy if my movie can be used in this fight.”The Cannes Film Festival said it would ban official Russian delegations, but would accept movies from Russian filmmakers.Pool photo by Kate GreenThe world’s largest film festivals are taking a different tack. On Tuesday, the Cannes Film Festival in France said in a statement that it would no longer “welcome official Russian delegations, nor accept the presence of anyone linked to the Russian government.” This would mean Russia’s film agency could no longer have a pavilion at the event in which to host parties and receptions. A Cannes spokeswoman said in an email that this would not mean a ban on Russian filmmakers.On Wednesday, the Venice Film Festival followed, saying it would not accept “persons tied in any capacity to the Russian government” at its events. It added that it would welcome “those who oppose the current regime in Russia.”Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4A humanitarian crisis. More

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      Too Close to Putin? Institutions Vet Artists, Uncomfortably.

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      Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led arts organizations to reconsider who performs, forcing them to confront questions about free speech and policing political views.In Canada, an acclaimed 20-year-old Russian pianist’s concert was canceled amid concerns about his silence on the invasion of Ukraine. The music director of an orchestra in Toulouse, France — who is also the chief conductor at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow — was instructed to clarify his position on the war before his next appearance. In New York, Anna Netrebko, one of opera’s biggest stars, saw her reign at the Metropolitan Opera end after she declined to denounce President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.As global condemnation of Russia’s attack on Ukraine grows, cultural institutions have moved with surprising speed to put pressure on Russian artists to distance themselves from Mr. Putin, a collision of art and politics that is forcing organizations to confront questions about free speech and whether they should be policing artists’ views.Institutions are demanding that artists who have supported Mr. Putin in the past issue clear condemnations of the Russian president and his invasion as a prerequisite for performing. Others are checking their rosters and poring over social media posts to ensure Russian performers have not made contentious statements about the war. The Polish National Opera has gone so far as to drop a production of Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov,” one of the greatest Russian operas, to express “solidarity with the people of Ukraine.”The tensions pose a dilemma for cultural institutions and those who support them. Many have long tried to stay above the fray of current events, and have a deep belief in the role the arts can play in bridging divides. Now arts administrators, who have scant geopolitical expertise, find themselves in the midst of one of the most politically charged issues in recent decades, with little in the way of experience to draw on.“We’re facing a totally new situation,” Andreas Homoki, the artistic director of the Zurich Opera, said. “Politics was never on our mind like this before.”The new scrutiny of Russian artists threatens to upend decades of cultural exchange that endured even during the depths of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union and the West sent artists back and forth amid fears of nuclear war. The Russian maestro Valery Gergiev, who has long been close to Mr. Putin, was fired as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic and saw his international engagements dry up. The Hermitage Amsterdam, an art museum, broke ties with the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The Bolshoi Ballet lost engagements in London and Madrid.Citing that Cold War tradition, the Cliburn — a foundation in Fort Worth named for the American pianist Van Cliburn, whose victory at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958 was seen as a sign that art could transcend political differences — announced that it would welcome 15 Russian-born pianists to audition next week for the 2022 Cliburn Competition, noting that they are not officials of their government.Jacques Marquis, the president and chief executive of the Cliburn, said the organization felt it was important to speak out as it watched Russian artists come under scrutiny. “We can help the world by standing our ground and focusing on the music and on the artists,” he said.The American pianist Van Cliburn’s victory at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958 was seen as a sign, at the height of the Cold War, that art could transcend political differences.The Van Cliburn FoundationEven as many institutions are eager to show support for Ukraine, and to distance themselves from artists who embrace Mr. Putin, they are uncomfortable with trying to vet the views of performers — and worry that Russian artists, who must often rely on the support of the state for their careers to thrive at home, could face reprisals if forced to publicly disavow the Kremlin.“You can’t just put everybody under general suspicion now,” said Alexander Neef, the director of the Paris Opera. “You can’t demand declarations of allegiance or condemnations of what’s going on.”The situation is tense and fast moving. Leaders of organizations are facing pressure from donors, board members and audiences, not to mention waves of anger on social media, where campaigns to cancel several Russian artists have rapidly gained traction.Institutions are also grappling with what to do about the Russians who are among their most important donors. On Wednesday the Guggenheim Museum announced that Vladimir O. Potanin, one of Russia’s richest men and a major benefactor, was stepping down as one of its trustees.Leila Getz, the founder and artistic director of a recital series in Vancouver, Canada, canceled an appearance by the Russian pianist Alexander Malofeev planned for August. Mr. Malofeev, 20, had not made any statements on the war, nor did he have any known ties to Mr. Putin. But Ms. Getz issued a statement saying she could not “in good conscience present a concert by any Russian artist at this moment in time unless they are prepared to speak out publicly against this war.”Soon she received dozens of messages. Some accused her of overstepping and demanded that Mr. Malofeev be allowed to perform.In an interview, Ms. Getz defended her decision, saying she was worried about the potential for protests. She said she had not asked Mr. Malofeev to condemn the war and that she was concerned for his safety.“The first things that came to my mind were, why would I want to bring a 20-year-old Russian pianist to Vancouver and have him faced with protests and people misbehaving inside the concert hall and hooting and screaming and hollering?” she said.Mr. Malofeev declined to comment. In a statement posted on Facebook, he said, “The truth is that every Russian will feel guilty for decades because of the terrible and bloody decision that none of us could influence and predict.”On Friday the Annapolis Symphony in Maryland announced that it would replace the Russian violinist Vadim Repin, who had been scheduled to play a Shostakovich concerto in upcoming concerts, “out of respect to Repin’s apolitical stance and concerns for the safety of himself and his family.”“We don’t want to put him in an uncomfortable, even impossible position,” the orchestra’s executive director, Edgar Herrera, said in a statement. In an interview, Mr. Herrera said that there had been threats to disrupt Mr. Repin’s performances and that the symphony was concerned that hosting a Russian artist could hurt its image and alienate donors.Deciding which artists are too close to Mr. Putin is not easy. Mr. Gergiev, the longtime general and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, has a relationship with Mr. Putin that goes back decades, and he has often supported the government’s policies. Mr. Gergiev led concerts in 2008 in South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia that was aided by Russian troops, and at the Syrian site of Palmyra in 2016 after it was retaken by Syrian and Russian forces.Ms. Netrebko, the star soprano, issued a statement opposing the war in Ukraine but withdrew from performing after declining to distance herself from Mr. Putin, whom she has expressed support for in the past. The war brought renewed attention to a photograph from 2014 of her holding a flag used by Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine.The pianist Evgeny Kissin, who was born in Moscow, said he believed that “supporters of a criminal war waged by a dictator and a mass murderer should have no place on the concert stages of the civilized world.”Milan Bures for The New York TimesThe eminent pianist Evgeny Kissin, who was born in Moscow and is now based in Prague, said that while many artists in Russia needed to support Mr. Putin to some degree because their institutions relied on state aid, others went too far. He said he believed that “supporters of a criminal war waged by a dictator and a mass murderer should have no place on the concert stages of the civilized world.”He added that while he thought it was natural for Western institutions to ask Mr. Putin’s most prominent supporters to speak out against the war, he did not think it should be required of artists who had not been particularly political in the past.How the Ukraine War Is Affecting the Cultural WorldCard 1 of 5Anna Netrebko. More

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      DakhaBrakha, a Band From Kyiv, Saw a War Coming

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      “We can’t make any music,” the singer and cellist Nina Garenetska said. “This is our life now: An air raid siren goes off.”For years, the Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha has ended its shows chanting, “Stop Putin! No war!” What they had protested has now come to pass.DakhaBrakha, based in Kyiv, has long served as ambassadors for Ukrainian music and culture, at once preserving and transforming them. The group gives the polyphonic harmonies of Ukrainian traditional songs a contemporary, internationalist makeover, using African, Australian, Arabic, Indian and Russian instrumentation alongside punk, scatting, hip-hop, trance and dance influences. Their appearance has always been equally striking, especially for the three women in the quartet: towering fur hats, long matching dresses and wildly colorful Iris Apfel-style jewelry.“DhakhaBrakha often sings about love, heartbreak or the seasons, but as stand-in for bigger things — sometimes political things — and how they do it expands upon Ukrainian traditional music that uses metaphor in this way,” said Maria Sonevytsky, an associate professor of anthropology and music at Bard College, in New York, who devoted a chapter in a recent book to DakhaBrakha and gave a public lecture Wednesday on “Understanding the War on Ukraine Through Its Musical Culture.”The singer and cellist Nina Garenetska, the singer and multi-instrumentalist Marko Halanevych, the singer and multi-instrumentalist Iryna Kovalenko, and the singer and percussionist Olena Tsybulska came together in 2004 as a house band for the experimental theater company Dakh in Kyiv. The three women had studied as ethnomusicologists, and they had delved into Ukraine’s varied regional styles. About eight years ago, the band’s concerts began integrating videos of the violence near Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (“Independence Square”), when paramilitary police in Kyiv cracked down on people protesting after then-President Viktor Yanukovych broke a promise to sign political and free-trade agreements with the European Union, tilting his nation toward Russia instead. The Yanukovych government was ousted; later in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea.In the years since, as DakhaBrakha has gone on to tour the world many times over, the band has turned up the volume on its political messaging and activism.DakhaBrakha first performed in North America in 2013, in Toronto. It came to the United States a few months later, and has since performed at Globalfest in New York, Bonnaroo in Tennessee and twice as part of NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series. On Friday and Saturday, the San Francisco Jazz Festival will offer two free online broadcasts of the DakhaBrakha concert that was filmed at the SFJazz Center on July 18, 2018, and is encouraging viewers to donate to a fund to support the band.In a video chat on Tuesday, Halanevych and Garenetska spoke with The New York Times through translators alongside their longtime artistic manager, Iryna Gorban, about their last shows before the war began and their hopes for the future. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.“The risk is that Ukrainians will disappear as a nation and that the Ukrainian culture will disappear,” the singer and multi-instrumentalist Marko Halanevych said.Carlos Gonzalez for The New York TimesMarko, I can see you are pulled over by the side of the road. Have you left Kyiv?HALANEVYCH Yes. It’s a total mess on the Ukrainian roads. I have with me my wife, also a musician, for Dakh Daughters, and two beautiful girls, 4 and 12. I am trying to save their lives by moving to a safer place near my relatives in the west — far from the border with Russia and Belarus. Not necessarily safe. My parents decided to stay. They said they would defend our house. [Laughs] I couldn’t persuade them. And I haven’t told my family yet, but I will be going back to Kyiv, to offer my help anywhere where it is needed, maybe in local defense.And you, Nina?GARENETSKA I am in our apartment with my son, who is a year and 10 months old, my husband and my mother, in Kyiv.How has it been, staying in Kyiv?GARENETSKA We can’t make any music. Because this is our life now: An air raid siren goes off — you go downstairs, you wait, you go back up. And this is nonstop. When it is too dangerous, we will run to the bomb shelter.Tell me about your last concert.GARENETSKA During our last concert, I was tearing up all the time with a weird mix: fear, love, but also hope and faith that everything will be OK. We had a small tour of five or six concerts in Europe — Ukraine, Slovenia, Prague, Oslo. From Oslo we flew to Zaporizhzhya [in southeastern Ukraine], and we came back to Kyiv literally for the day. The next day, we were going to continue touring, but we didn’t go because at 5 a.m. Thursday, the war started.And since then, what has DakhaBrakha heard from your fan base in Ukraine?GORBAN To share their emotions, many people here are posting on social media the last picture or video they took just before the war started. And we saw that many are from DakhaBrakha’s last concerts, where, as usual, DakhaBrakha says “Stop Putin!” and “No War!” and “Free Ukraine!” — and of course people are really in solidarity with this.How and when did DakhaBrakha decide to bring more overt statements about the conflict with Russia to your concerts?HALANEVYCH At a certain moment, we understood that this threat needed to be talked about more to send a stronger message to the world. And we started speaking out about how Ukraine had decided once and for all to leave Russia’s orbit and separate absolutely. We began saying “Stop Putin!” We showed the videos of the events at Maidan, we had posters, and since then, we say those mottos at every concert. But we were not heard.Musically, have your concerts addressed this conflict about Ukrainian sovereignty?GORBAN DakhaBrakha has produced songs from many different regions of Ukraine, and we tried to unite our country in this way, through music. At our concerts, during the last year, we played at each concert a song for people who defend our freedom. It is a very special moment for people; it makes them stand up and feel brave and confident. It makes you believe in our nation. We also have a special requiem devoted to those who gave their lives in this struggle. We almost never play this live, only very special occasions.What is at risk if this war lasts, culturally speaking?HALANEVYCH The risk is that Ukrainians will disappear as a nation and that the Ukrainian culture will disappear. For 300 years, Russia did everything for Ukrainian culture to disappear. Also, in recent years, the last 30 and especially the last eight, we Ukrainians feel what it is like to be a free people.How the Ukraine War Is Affecting the Cultural WorldCard 1 of 5Anna Netrebko. More