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Southern and Eastern Europe correspondent
SERGEI CHIRIKOV/AFP via Getty Images
Russian conductor Valery Gergiev has been barred from European stages ever since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
A close ally of Vladimir Putin for many years, the director of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Russian state theatres has never spoken out against the war.
But a region of southern Italy has now invited Gergiev back to Europe, signalling the artist’s rehabilitation even as Russia’s attacks on Ukraine intensify.
Vincenzo de Luca, who runs the Campania region, insists that the concert at the Un’Estate da RE festival later this month will go ahead despite a growing swell of criticism.
“Culture… must not be influenced by politics and political logic,” De Luca said in a livestream on Friday. “We do not ask these men to answer for the choices made by politicians.”
The 76-year-old local leader has previously called Europe’s broad veto on pro-Putin artists “a moment of stupidity – a moment of madness” at the start of the war and announced that he was “proud” to welcome Gergiev to town.
