Italy Cancels Concert Featuring Russian Conductor and Putin Friend
The management of the Royal Palace of Caserta in Italy announced on Monday that it had cancelled a concert featuring Russian conductor and ‘Putin's friend’ Valery Gergiev.
The Gaze reports on it, referring to Ansa.
The concert was to take place on 27 July as part of the Un'Estate da Re (‘Summer of the King’) festival.
The planned concert sparked a storm of reaction, with criticism coming from the Italian central government, Russian dissidents and Ukrainian associations.
The 72-year-old conductor, who was invited by the Campania regional government, has never spoken out against Russia's war against Ukraine.
The performance at the former royal palace of the Bourbons in northern Naples would have effectively ended the de facto ban on Gergiev's performances on European stages after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
After 24 February 2022, Valery Gergiev was removed from cooperation with most of the leading musical institutions in Europe with which he was associated as a director or guest conductor. As a long-time associate of Putin, he lost his position as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, which he had held since 2015.
The Vienna and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestras, festivals in Edinburgh, Verbier and Prague, La Scala in Milan and others have refused to work with him.
In the context of this scandal, Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli stated that art should be free from censorship, but emphasised that in Gergiev's case, it was not about art but propaganda.
Last year, Sweden cancelled a series of Russian ballet performances due to their ties to the Kremlin.