By Sebastian Bauer
Wild protests against a world star!
“Anna Netrebko’s appearance is a disgrace for the State Opera,” says Liliya Hordiychuk (39). The native Ukrainian is one of around 200 demonstrators who demonstrated in front of the opera on Friday evening against the appearance of the Russian soprano (51) in Verdi’s “Macbeth”.
Civil engineer Boris Pekarski sees it similarly: “A few days ago, a friend of mine was murdered in the Russian war of aggression. I just have to be here today and protest.” The demonstrators accuse Netrebko of not distancing himself sufficiently from Vladimir Putin and of supporting the war.
“Terror Russia” or “First comes the eating, when does morality come?” are written on protest posters. The demo participants chant “Shame!” and “No Netrebko”, the colors blue and yellow dominate the crowd.
Anna Netrebko as Lady Macbeth at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (2018) Photo: Bernd Uhlig/State Opera
The police shield the demonstrators from the opera audience with gates.
Co-organizer Victoria Fischer says to the BZ: “Ukraine defends European values, and if Anna Netrebko is sanctioned in Ukraine, we demand that Germany also sanctions her.”
The demonstrators receive support from Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (51, CDU) and Senator for Culture Joe Chialo (53, CDU). You criticize Netrebko’s appearance in Berlin. Parallel to the State Opera appearance, Chialo visited the photo exhibition “Russian War Crimes” at the Humboldt University together with the Ukrainian ambassador Oleksii Makeiev.
State Opera director Matthias Schulz (46) also shows solidarity with Ukraine: the Ukrainian flag flies on the roof of the State Opera. But the director also believes that Netrebko is distancing himself from the Putin regime and the war.
Many opera-goers who don’t want to miss Netrebko in “Macbeth” see it similarly. “Anna Netrebko has spoken out, she can’t say anything more because she still has family in Russia,” says Annette Domhardt.
And the two opera visitors Heike Richter and Christiane Stissel also think: “We are in favor of art being able to take place independently of politics.”