Putin’s soprano in Wiesbaden. The failure of the Ukrainian boycott of the Netrebko festival

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The Ministry of Culture of Ukraine and the organizing committee of the International May Festival in Wiesbaden exchanged views on a topic that has already stuck a little: the opportunity for Ukrainian artists to perform on the same stage with their Russian colleagues. Especially some of them. The dispute ended in nothing – the parties stuck to their opinion and did not lose their sense of moral superiority. You could put an end to this. But if all our attempts to challenge the cultural policy of the West end in the same way, we risk forever remaining in the shadow of the imperial myth of “great Russian culture”. Putin’s Soprano The stumbling block in this story was the name of Anna Netrebko – an opera star of the first magnitude, whom the organizing committee of the Wiesbaden Festival included in the program. Let me remind you that Anna Netrebko is Putin’s confidant in the 2012 elections, and she supported the DPR in 2014. However, it became finally toxic only after February 24, 2022. In particular, her pro-Putin position cost her a contract with the Metropolitan Opera. Anna Netrebko and the traitor Oleg Tsarev hold the flag of the so-called “Novorossiya” during the transfer by the opera singer of a “donation” to the Donetsk Opera Theater, damaged during the hybrid war of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, 2014. The case of the Russian opera diva is in the way the imperial myth of Russia functions and infects the world, which is promoted through “neutral”, “apolitical” spheres, be it art or sports. Spheres in which a person represents, as it were, only himself – his individual achievements and talents. But somehow, for some reason, the admiration, respect and love that the performer evokes in the public also extends to the political project with which he is associated. In the case of Russia, this is not surprising. Russian artists are most often in a symbiotic relationship with the Russian imperial myth: they are interesting to the West precisely as Russian artists who organically perform the Russian repertoire. Which is in great demand in the West. Which these artists, in turn, support with all their might. While maintaining an interest in Russian culture and Russia in general. This cute symbiosis is not the first hundred years. And in its history, there were almost no periods when “art-beyond-politics” was not used for political purposes. Nevertheless, the ban on Russian culture in the West is in no hurry to support it. Vice versa. There they insist that no power in this world will take away from them the sacred right to play Tchaikovsky and quote Dostoyevsky. “Freedom of creativity above all.” What is “everything”? A good question that, unfortunately, is rarely asked and almost never answered. Read also: How Ukrainian culture emerges from the shadow of the Russian Empire. The Director of the Ukrainian Institute of Art uber alles explains When it became clear that high German art could not do without Anna Netrebko, Minister of Culture Tkachenko addressed a letter to the Minister of Culture of Germany, Claudia Roth (who, in turn, sent a letter to the organizing committee of the festival). In addition, Petro Chupryna, general director of the National Opera of Ukraine, wrote there. In letters that have not yet become public property, officials informed the German side that Ukrainian musicians refused to participate in the festival. The response of the representatives of the festival turned out to be quite irritated. Its essence is that the Ukrainian groups knew about Netrebko’s participation in the festival. And this did not prevent them – until the moment when the authorities intervened. That allowed the organizing committee to make an assumption that, in fact, there was no refusal by the artists. And in reality, “politically motivated or politically imposed” pressure happened. And not only for Ukrainian musicians, but also for the festival itself. To which the organizing committee – puffed up by its own moral superiority – noted that they live in a “free country” (it is clear between the lines – “unlike Ukraine”), where neither officials nor political considerations will force artists to give up creative freedom. The lobby of the Wiesbaden State Theater, where the May Festival takes place. Photo: ullstein, Getty Images Here it would be possible to swallow a bitter pill and save the compliments for the Ukrainian officials, who trivially pretended. But irritation did not allow the organizers of the festival to tear their fingers from the keyboard in time. They decided to clarify their understanding of creative freedom. It turns out that the theater cannot agree to a total ban on Russian culture. Because “for us, this would mean that we cannot allow Russian artists to perform, play any Russian music (Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto will be performed at the festival), should not hear Russian writers – while the festival opens with a performance based on Dostoyevsky’s work” Notes from the dead house”. This demand of the Minister of Culture of Ukraine to completely remove Russian culture from our program cannot be acceptable to us in a free country.” Well, there are still places on the planet where “Russian culture” and “free country” are in the same sentence – and nothing: the paper endures. And the willingness to defend the “freedom to play Tchaikovsky” is even stronger than the sense of tact that would not allow an educated person to talk about the rope in the hanged man’s house. Or wave a volume of Dostoyevsky above the ruins of residential blocks that are still smoking. This is exactly what the organizers of the Wiesbaden Festival, and not only them, are trying to talk about with “freedom of creativity”: the fact that they are choosing between solidarity with the victims of the Kremlin regime and the desire to “play Tchaikovsky.” And what would you choose – cry and die together with nameless Ukrainians or enjoy, suffocate with delight in the pure streams of “eternal art”? A very inconvenient choice. Which you want to replace with something. As a result of a small effort of conscience, a moral choice can be translated into a purely aesthetic plane. At the same time, “great culture” is no longer about the best mental qualities, not about the choice between good and evil, not about the struggle for what is human in a person. It is exclusively about the beauty of consonance, a subtle sense of color, the tastes of the public and the willingness of this public to pay a fortune for a crimson velvet chair in the comfort zone. And there is nothing surprising in the fact that for this field of “pure culture”, absolutely “free from politics”, Netrebko is much more valuable than the nameless inhabitant of some grave #104. Well, at least the Wiesbaden festival was honest: don’t come to us with your pains, injuries and mutilations, your nameless corpses, smoking ruins, and other “politics”. “Culture is higher than nations.” It’s just strange to hear this from the Germans. Don’t you know that from the “greatness of culture” and other “uber alles” to the justification of genocide is one step? Culture at war Other people’s pain often does not hurt. At least as long as the person has the opportunity to keep a distance between “own” and “other”. So I – like you, probably, like Oleksandr Tkachenko – also want to stamp my foot, hit the table with my fist, shout, demand to stop this imperial sabbath in violin performance. Because culture is not “higher than politics.” And not “lower” than her. In our imperfect world, culture and politics are inseparable from each other, and any attempt to deny this is either foolishness, or a lie, or both. As long as the Russian Empire destroys what it considers its colony, while it carries out a policy of genocide against “non-existent” Ukrainians, the words “Russian” and “freedom” are antonyms. And the phrase “freedom to perform Russian music” is an oxymoron. Now is the perfect time to change the rules of the game in the world’s art venues. The situation in which “high culture” justifies the possibility of brushing aside a child’s tears is intolerable and wrong. And if anyone can make changes in this situation, it is us. Simply because we are now experts in moral choice. From that human drama, from which and for the sake of which real art grows, around which culture is built. We are the ones who affirm “eternal values” every day – in blood, in sweat, in tears. Because this is the only way they are forged, this is the only way they are confirmed, and this is the only way they are transformed later – if we are lucky, and in those who survive – into symphonies, poetry and other exquisite forms. But what are we doing to make the world see and hear what it does not want to see or hear? The organizers of the Wiesbaden Festival are right about one thing: culture is not the field in which controversial issues are resolved by stomping a foot and shouting angrily at a minister. It is not the ministers who decide what the theater should perform or not perform, whose names should be included or banned in the posters. The Ukrainian side in the dispute with the Wiesbaden Festival was essentially right. But she behaved in a completely inappropriate manner. This made it possible for the organizing committee to look decent where it is, in fact, completely wrong. But our minister, like the director of the theater, for some reason did not even think that their letters were inappropriate. That the refusal and the justification for the refusal had to come completely and entirely from the artists, because the intervention of officials would be interpreted precisely as “political pressure”. But no one thought of it. Because here, as before, everything works exactly as you can see from Wiesbaden: the authorities decide and tell the artist where to go or not to go, with whom to appear on the same bill or not. And our Ministry of Culture, after thirty years without the USSR, still does not know that cultural policy is not the manual management of culture. This is not shouting at one’s own and others about what to play and with whom. This issue should be decided by cultural workers themselves. It was they who should have assembled an expert council and made recommendations about what Ukrainian artists should – and what should not – do under the conditions of war. Where is the border to which they can bring Ukrainian art to the world, broadcast Ukrainian opinion, promote Ukrainian interests, and where is the line beyond which one cannot stand under any conditions. But a year has passed, during which no one was encouraged, no scenes and opportunities were refused, no ambiguous situations were Ukrainian cultural figures got into… But no one ever thought about what the cultural policy of the country should be in the conditions of war . We do not have any general recommendations, guidelines, algorithms for actions in questionable situations, as there never was. As a result, such a powerful tool as culture – perhaps the only way to make “outsiders” overcome alienation, get out of velvet chairs, hear our voices and experience our pain – is used sporadically, depends on the enthusiasm of individual people and is not coordinated in any way. Culture officials prefer more telegenic roles. It is much more effective to go to a press conference and declare that “we will not tolerate”. After all, one would like to be at least a little like Volodymyr Zelenskyi – to thunder, like him, at “Western partners”. Let’s not talk about Patriot, Abrams and F16 – at least about Tchaikovsky and Netrebko. Fashion for green fleece is playing a bad joke with our authorities: they are all “at war” and “holding the front” (they would like us to think so). But it is not so. The front is held by those who are at the front and those who provide the front. And the rest should just do their work. We write angry letters. And we rub ourselves, having received an answer. Kateryna Shotkina, publicist, music columnist, specially for UP.Zhyttia.

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