Royal Opera House urged to drop Russian soprano ‘with Kremlin links'
Anna Netrebko is set to perform in Puccini's Tosca at the Covent Garden venue, but Ukrainian campaigners have raised concerns about her alleged links to the Kremlin.
The singer was branded a 'muse of Putin' by campaigners who protested against her appearances in Germany.
An open letter addressed to the ROH states that 'it is …with great pain that we witness the Royal Opera House inviting Anna Netrebko – a long-time symbol of cultural propaganda for a regime that is responsible for serious war crimes – to return to its stage in title roles'.
Signatories include the Ukrainian novelists Andriy Kurkov and Serhiy Zhadan, Helen Clark, a former prime minister of New Zealand, and the French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy.
British MPs including John Whittingdale, vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Ukraine, have also signed the letter.
The ROH has not commented, but it stands accused of offering a role to a supporter of Russian separatist movements in Ukraine. The letter claimed that Ms Netrebko waved the flag of 'Novorossiya', a Kremlin-backed 'separatist project in Ukraine's Donetsk region'.
It also claimed that offering Ms Netrebko a high-profile platform was ill-advised at a time when Russia is making 'land-grab' offensives in Ukraine ahead of peace talks with Donald Trump.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ms Netrebko had said she 'expressly condemned' the military action, adding that she was 'not a member of any political party nor am I allied with any leader of Russia'.
The ROH was among numerous cultural institutions to show support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion in 2022, although calls for a boycott of Russian performers were resisted across the classical music community in the UK.
It was involved in controversy last month when Daniel Perry, a 'queer dance artist', pulled out a Palestinian flag during a curtain call for Il trovatore, and earlier this month cancelled a planned production of Tosca in Israel.
It said: 'We want our stage to remain a space for shared cultural appreciation, free from individual political statements. Our support for Ukraine was aligned with the global consensus at the time. As the world's geopolitics have become more complex, our stance has changed to ensure that our actions reflect our purpose and values.'
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