More than 200 people protested against Anna Netrebko’s concert in Wiesbaden

More than 200 people protested against the performance of opera singer Anna Netrebko at the May music festival in the city of Wiesbaden, Germany.

They demand that the management of the festival exclude Netrebko from the list of participants because of her closeness to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin in the past years. Protesters believe that Netrebko approved the actions of separatists in Donbas in 2014 and did not sufficiently condemn Russia’s current war in Ukraine.

Demonstrators speak out in support of Ukraine. Ukrainian classical musicians previously invited to the festival refused to participate precisely because they did not agree to perform on the same stage with Netrebko.

At the end of March 2022, Anna Netrebko condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and because of this, her performances in Novosibirsk were canceled.

This year’s festival, in which more than 680 musicians and singers from around the world take part, is dedicated to political prisoners from around the world. His motto “Fly, thought, on golden wings” is a line from the slave chorus from Giuseppe Verda’s opera “Nabucco”. It is in the opera “Nabucco” that Anna Netrebko will perform the role of Abigail on the big stage of the State Theater in Wiesbaden.

Among the protesters was the Consul General of Ukraine in Frankfurt, Vadym Kostyuk.

• People’s Artist of Russia, opera singer Anna Netrebko is one of the most sought-after sopranos in the world. She lives in Vienna, where she is the leading soloist of the Vienna Opera. In Russia, in 2012, Netrebko was registered as a proxy of Vladimir Putin in his election campaign. She supported separatist actions in Donbass in 2014.
• After the start of Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, relations with Anna Netrebko broke up with the Metropolitan Opera. The theater’s statement said that they will not be restored until Russia ends the war and compensates Ukraine for the damage caused. Netrebko herself said that she condemns the war, but remains a patriot of Russia and its culture. She emphasized that she “wants to remain a person” and a cultural figure, even if for this she needs to “sit on two chairs.”