The Teatro de la Scala in Milan dismisses the Russian conductor Valery Gergiev after he has not responded to a letter sent by authorities of the Italian city to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“He has not responded to the letter”, lamented the mayor of Milan, Giuseppe Sala, about the letter in which he and the superintendent of La Scala, Dominique Meyer, claimed Gergiev, a friend of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, “a distancing from war”, something “other” than an “abjuration”.
“I see that other people in the artistic world, such as Anna Netrebko, have expressed themselves in this way, and also many in the world of sports. I do not want to judge, but what I do know, and I asked Superintendent Meyer for confirmation, is that Valery Gergiev has gone and has not responded”, lamented the alderman, according to the Italian newspaper ‘Corriere della Sera’.
Thus, he has ensured that Gergiev can now be “ruled out” from directing ‘The Queen of Spades’, of which he led the premiere at Piermarini on February 23. In fact, the Teatro de la Scala is looking for another director for the next presentations of the opera.
The dismissal of the Russian director, to whom the Milan authorities have given several ultimatums to respond to the letter, will become effective when his replacement is named, while Riccardo Chailly’s name sounds as an option.
The Scala Theater is not the first to dispense with Gergiev for not rejecting the Russian invasion. Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic have already fired him and his position as conductor of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra is at stake since the mayor of the German city, Dieter Reiter, has given him until Monday to define his position on the invasion.
The pro-Putin teacher’s lack of condemnation of the war has also caused his international agent, Marcus Felsner, to abandon him. “In light of the criminal war perpetrated by the Russian regime against the democratic and independent Ukrainian nation and against European society as a whole, it has become impossible for us, and clearly inopportune, to defend the interests of Master Gergiev,” Felsner Artist announced. on Sunday in a statement released on their social networks.