MOSCOW, May 1.The performance of Russian opera singer Anna Netrebko, which was supposed to take place on June 1 in Lucerne, Switzerland, has been canceled at the request of local authorities, taking into account the geographical and temporal proximity to the peace conference in Ukraine, reported the Culture and Congress Center of Lucerne (KKL), where the concert was supposed to take place.
“KKL Lucerne will not provide a venue for Anna Netrebko's concert on June 1, 2024. The public perception of the soloist remains controversial. Due to the geographical and temporal proximity of Mrs. Netrebko's performance to the peace conference in Ukraine, a threat to public order was to be expected. For this reason, the cantonal and city authorities asked KKL Lucerne cancel the concert,” the venue said in a statement.
At the beginning of March 2022, the New York Metropolitan Opera announced that Netrebko would not participate in upcoming productions because she had not complied with the requirement to refuse public support for Russian President Vladimir Putin amid the events in Ukraine. For the same reason, the Bavarian State Opera broke off relations with her. After this, Netrebko’s representative said that the singer decided to take a break from concert activities. Netrebko later announced on social networks that she would resume performing, first in Europe. She also stated that she is not a member of political parties and does not support any of the Russian political leaders.
Switzerland will hold a peace conference on Ukraine on June 15-16 near the city of Lucerne. Russia will not attend it. Press Secretary of the Russian Embassy in Bern Vladimir Khokhlov earlier said that Switzerland had not sent an invitation to the Russian Federation to participate in the summit on Ukraine, and Moscow would not participate in any case. He added that the idea of a peace conference, strongly promoted by the organizers, is unacceptable for the Russian Federation, since “we are talking about another option for pushing through an unviable “peace formula” that does not take into account Russian interests.
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