Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2022)

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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

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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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      Gérard Depardieu, Friend of Putin, Denounces ‘Fratricidal War’

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      “Stop the weapons and negotiate,” the French actor and staunch Russia ally told a news agency.For the past decade, the French actor Gérard Depardieu has been one of the closest Western celebrities to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.In 2013, the movie star became a Russian citizen to avoid taxes in France. In a letter to Russian state television at the time, Mr. Depardieu said, “I love your president, Vladimir Putin, very much and it’s mutual.” Mr. Putin awarded Mr. Depardieu Russian citizenship at a special dinner that year.As tensions between Russia and Ukraine were growing last month, Mr. Depardieu even went on French television to say, “Leave Vladimir alone.”Now, Mr. Depardieu has taken a surprising step toward ruining that cherished friendship when, on Tuesday, the actor denounced the war in Ukraine in an interview with Agence France-Presse, the French news service. “Russia and Ukraine have always been brother countries,” Mr. Depardieu said. “I am against this fratricidal war,” he added. “I say, ‘Stop the weapons and negotiate.’”Best known for 1990s movies including “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “Green Card,” Mr. Depardieu later posted part of his statement on Instagram. His agent did not respond to an interview request.Mr. Depardieu’s comments are unlikely to change many Ukrainians’ views of the actor. In 2015, the Ukrainian government included Mr. Depardieu on a list of cultural figures who were a threat to the country’s security. It did not state a reason, but Ukrainian newspapers linked the decision to comments Mr. Depardieu had made questioning Ukraine’s independence. In 2014, at the Baltic Pearl movie festival in Latvia, Mr. Depardieu told reporters that he loved both Russia and “Ukraine, which is part of Russia.”The French tax exile is not the only famous actor to have taken Russian citizenship: Steven Seagal, the American-born star of action movies like “Under Siege,” was naturalized in 2016. On Thursday, Mr. Seagal’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request to discuss the actor’s views on the war in Ukraine.In recent years, Mr. Depardieu has been in the news for controversies aside from his Russia connections. In 2018, French prosecutors investigated rape allegations against him, but dropped the case the following year because of a lack of evidence. 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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      Review: Upended by Global Conflict, the Vienna Philharmonic Plays On

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      Yannick Nézet-Séguin picked up the baton at Carnegie Hall, after a conductor with ties to Vladimir Putin was dropped amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.A week ago, the Vienna Philharmonic’s three-night stop at Carnegie Hall, which began Friday, was remarkable mostly for signifying a major step in the slow return of international orchestras to New York. Then Russia invaded Ukraine.The Viennese had been set to be conducted by Valery Gergiev, a frequent magnet for protests at Carnegie Hall over his close ties with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Both Carnegie and the Philharmonic had previously been outspoken about separating Gergiev’s politics and his artistry, even though his artistry is inseparable from the government.Come Thursday, when phrases like “the whole world has changed” started to surface, Gergiev’s relationship with Putin became “untenable,” as Clive Gillinson, Carnegie’s executive and artistic director, told The New York Times. Gergiev was dropped from Philharmonic concerts; so was Denis Matsuev, the planned soloist in Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, who had publicly endorsed Putin’s policies in the past.Gergiev has not commented on the invasion, even as many classical musicians who didn’t need to have. (Until Saturday, the star soprano Anna Netrebko, another Putin supporter, was also silent before she posted a face-saving statement to Instagram saying she was “opposed to this war,” with a defiant coda that “forcing artists, or any public figure, to voice their political opinions in public and to denounce their homeland is not right.”) If Gergiev doesn’t speak out, he faces more cancellations: from the Teatro alla Scala in Milan; the Munich Philharmonic, where he is the chief conductor; and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, which had been planning a festival in his honor.But back to the Vienna Philharmonic.With the news of Gergiev’s departure came the announcement that Yannick Nézet-Séguin, neither a stranger to the Philharmonic nor much of a regular, would step in — bringing his total number of appearances at Carnegie this season to more than a dozen. He had just led the Philadelphia Orchestra, of which he is the music director, there on Monday, and was preparing to open a new production of Verdi’s “Don Carlos” on Feb. 28 at the Metropolitan Opera, where he is also the music director. Suddenly, he was conducting three Vienna concerts, with three different programs, in between. (As if that weren’t enough, he opens a revival of “Tosca” at the Met on Wednesday; when vacation comes, it will be well earned.)Then a pianist needed to be found. Seong-Jin Cho, who lives in Berlin, agreed around midnight his time on Friday, and was on a plane to New York within about seven hours. He hadn’t played the Rachmaninoff concerto since 2019, and had never worked with the Philharmonic; for more pressure, this was going to be his orchestral debut at Carnegie.Nézet-Séguin and the Philharmonic with the pianist Seong-Jin Cho, a last-minute replacement who flew in from Berlin to make his orchestral debut at Carnegie.Chris LeeBecause Nézet-Séguin was spending much of Friday in the final dress rehearsal for “Don Carlos,” the Vienna concert wasn’t rehearsed until 6 p.m. — and even then, for only 75 minutes ahead of the start time at 8. Never mind that the program, of the concerto and Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony, contained over 90 minutes of music.Yet someone living under a rock could have walked into this concert, knowing none of its context, and been perfectly happy. Indeed, Friday’s performance was probably better than it would have been under the baton of Gergiev — who, politics aside, is too often an unreliable conductor — and with Matsuev, who tends to barrel insensitively through war horses like the Rachmaninoff.Nézet-Séguin didn’t merely keep time or hold the Philharmonic together; he led them with passion and decisive interpretation. And Cho didn’t simply get through the concerto; he played it from memory, with moments of sublime delicacy. This was expert music-making, notable for happening at all and miraculous in its execution.Understand Russia’s Attack on UkraineCard 1 of 7What is at the root of this invasion? More

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      Valery Gergiev Faces Removal From Podiums Over Support for Putin

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      A day after he was dropped from concerts at Carnegie Hall, the star Russian maestro Valery Gergiev on Friday faced rising anger over his record of support for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, with several leading European institutions — including the Munich Philharmonic, of which Mr. Gergiev is chief conductor — threatening to sever ties with him unless he denounced Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.The fallout, encompassing Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, was a rare rebuke of a titan of the classical music industry, and it reflected growing global outrage over Mr. Putin’s ongoing military offensive in Ukraine.Mr. Gergiev, 68, one of Russia’s most prominent cultural ambassadors, is now being shunned because of his ties to Mr. Putin, his longtime friend and benefactor. He seems in peril of losing several key posts, including the podium in Munich and his position as honorary conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.Munich’s mayor, Dieter Reiter, issued an ultimatum on Friday, saying Mr. Gergiev must denounce the “brutal war of aggression that Putin is waging against Ukraine” before Monday or be fired by the orchestra, three years before his contract is set to expire.The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra offered a similar warning, threatening to cancel its “Gergiev Festival,” planned for September. The Teatro alla Scala in Milan said Mr. Gergiev would be dropped from upcoming performances of Tchaikovsky’s “Queen of Spades” and other engagements if he did not immediately call for peace.And after Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic announced on Thursday that Mr. Gergiev would no longer lead the orchestra in three high-profile concerts starting Friday evening, Carnegie on Friday canceled two concerts by the Mariinsky Orchestra in May that were to have been led by Mr. Gergiev.Mr. Gergiev did not respond to requests for comment from The New York Times.The uproar was a significant blow to a conductor who has built a busy international career while maintaining deep ties to the Russian state, including in his role as general and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.Mr. Putin has been critical to Mr. Gergiev’s success, providing funding to his theater and showering him with awards. Mr. Gergiev has emerged as a prominent supporter of Mr. Putin, endorsing his re-election and appearing at concerts in Russia and abroad to promote his policies. The two have known each other since the early 1990s, when Mr. Putin was an official in St. Petersburg and Mr. Gergiev was beginning his tenure as the leader of the Mariinsky, then called the Kirov.Western cultural institutions have largely looked beyond Mr. Gergiev’s ties to Mr. Putin, even as the conductor became the target of repeated protests over the past decade, at Carnegie, the Metropolitan Opera and elsewhere.Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine this week put new pressure on arts leaders to reconsider their ties to Mr. Gergiev. After a hastily arranged meeting on Thursday morning, Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic made the announcement that the orchestra would go on without him. The Russian pianist Denis Matsuev, who had been scheduled to perform with Mr. Gergiev and the Philharmonic on Friday, and who has expressed support for Mr. Putin’s policies in the past, was also taken off the program.Understand Russia’s Attack on UkraineCard 1 of 7What is at the root of this invasion? More