By Alvise Armellini
ROME (Reuters) -Italian authorities have cancelled a classical concert scheduled for Sunday following criticism over the attendance of a top Russian conductor shunned in the West since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Valery Gergiev, who is widely regarded as close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, had been expected to lead an Italian orchestra and soloists from St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, which he heads, on July 27.
The Reggia di Caserta, a grand 18th-century palace near Naples which had been due to host the concert, said in a short statement on Monday that the event had been called off. It gave no reason.
The performance had drawn criticism last week from Italian politicians and international activists, including the wife of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who called Gergiev an “accomplice” of Putin.
The cancellation is “good news. Not joyful, but good. No artist who supports the current dictatorship in Russia should be welcomed in Europe,” Yulia Navalnaya wrote on X.
Gergiev, 72, received “no information” about the cancellation, Russian state-run news agency TASS quoted him as saying. The conductor did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
The Russian ambassador to Italy, Alexei Paramonov, lamented on Facebook that Italy had caved in to the pro-Ukraine “lobby”, adding: “Those who think that the cancellation of Gergiev’s concert will harm Russia are deeply mistaken.”
‘COMMON-SENSE’ CANCELLATION
The concert was part of a festival organised by the Campania region, which includes Naples. Regional leader Vincenzo De Luca had defended it, saying artists should not be held responsible for the actions of their national governments.
De Luca, a critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, had also pointed to a festival concert led by Israeli conductor Daniel Oren, to highlight efforts to keep “channels of communication open even with those who do not think like us”.
Italian Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli, who last week said the concert risked turning into “a sounding board for Russian propaganda”, welcomed the organisers’ “free and undisputable” decision to call it off.
“While respecting the exceptional artistic quality of the event, the cancellation … obeys a logic of common sense and moral commitment aimed at protecting the values of the free world,” Giuli said.
In 2022, several Western cultural institutions, including Milan’s La Scala, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and New York’s Carnegie Hall severed ties with Gergiev over his refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
(Reporting by Alvise Armellini; Additional reporting by Maxim Rodionov in Moscow; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Dale Hudson)
