Anna Netrebko, starring at a festival in Germany, is once again controversial

The German Land of Hesse and the city of Wiesbaden expressed their dissatisfaction with the line-up of the Wiesbaden International May Festival. This one has just unveiled it and among the headliners is Anna Netrebko. She will play Abigaille alongside Željko Lučić and Michael Güttler in the Nabuco by Giuseppe Verdi.

Reactions from local officials were not long in coming. From the outset, they ask the festival to “happen” of the singer of its programming. The singer is one of the personalities sanctioned by Ukraine, specifying that “people are dying every day. How to explain to our Ukrainian friends that Anna Netrebko is going to perform at the May festival?

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The demonstration dedicates its 2023 edition to all political prisoners in the world, some of them detained in Iran, Turkey, China, Hong Kong, Belarus and Russia, including Alexei Navalny, the Russian opponent sentenced to 9 years in prison.

Lyrical Superstar, Anna Netrebko has already been canceled from several concerts since the start of the war in Ukraine, on February 24. In March 2022, the Metropolitan Opera in New York objected to his performance due to an alleged refusal to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, on February 26, 2022, she declared on her Facebook page “to be opposed to the war, to have Ukrainian friends, to be heartbroken by the suffering endured and to want this war to end so that people can live in peace”.

Then, she withdraws herself from her engagements at the Zurich Opera, at La Scala in Milan or in Barcelona. “It’s not the right time for me to perform and make music. I hope my audience will understand this decision.”, she said then. After having again condemned the war in Ukraine, it was disowned by Russia and since considered a “traitor to his country”.