Anna Netrebko: Lucerne cancels concert of Russian soprano

Anna Netrebko performs during a gala concert at the Kremlin in Moscow in 2021. Keystone

Russian star soprano Anna Netrebko will not be performing in Lucerne. The concert on June 1 at the KKL Culture and Congress Centre has been cancelled owing to pressure from the Lucerne government.

“The KKL Lucerne is not available for Anna Netrebko’s concert on June 1, 2024,” the Luzerner Zeitung reported on Wednesday. The public perception of the soloist remains controversial, the KKL continued.

The background to the cancellation is the timing and geographical location of the performance at the Ukraine Peace Conference on the Bürgenstock, which overlooks Lake Lucerne. The KKL had been asked to cancel the concert by the cantonal and municipal authorities because “a threat to public order” was expected.

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The Lucerne cantonal government has also warned of riots and protests in Lucerne “that could jeopardise the security situation of our population”, said Armin Hartmann, director of Education and Culture of the Canton of Lucerne. In a letter, the cantonal government had expressed “the unequivocal expectation” that the planned concert with Netrebko should be cancelled, Hartmann continued.

Netrebko, for her part, regretted the unilateral cancellation “contrary to the contractual obligations with the organisers”. Her management pointed out in writing that the peace conference would take place two weeks after the concert date. Furthermore, none of her almost 100 performances since March 2022 had led to a disruption of public order, it said.

Netrebko is rumoured to be close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2014, she celebrated her birthday in the Kremlin and appeared with the neo-Russian flag and an eastern Ukrainian, pro-Russian separatist leader in the same year. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 she came under increasing criticism. This was followed by the cancellation of concerts and opera performances in the US and other Western countries.

Her management now emphasises that Netrebko made several statements in March 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “in which she spoke out against the war and called for peace in Ukraine”. Since then, her position has not changed and she has not returned to Russia, it said.

Netrebko has lived in Austria since 2006 and has held both Russian and Austrian citizenship since then.

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Concert previously postponed

Netrebko’s performance in Lucerne – she had planned to perform with her husband Yusif Eyvazov – had actually been scheduled for June 2022. The concert was ultimately postponed to June 1, 2024. This was due to Covid, according to Netrebko’s management, but due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shortly beforehand, according to Lucerne.

The organiser of the now cancelled concert is not the KKL itself, but Good News Productions in Zurich. According to the Luzerner Zeitung, the KKL had already indicated at an earlier stage that it would not be unhappy about a cancellation. The organiser did not comment on Wednesday because of the May public holiday.

Even without the performance in Lucerne, the opera singer’s diary for the second half of the year is well filled. In June she has several opera performances at La Scala in Milan, in August she will be on stage at the Arena in Verona, followed by Linz and Madrid. A performance with star tenor Jonas Kaufmann is planned for November, again in Milan.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

This article has been amended on May 6, 2024 following feedback from a reader.

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