Several weeks back, I diaried here about the recent Metropolitan Opera production of Eugene Onegin, with a discussion of how the Russian legislation this year against "gay propaganda" was threatening to swallow up 2 artists in that production, soprano Anna Netrebko and conductor Valery Gergiev, in the firestorm of worldwide reaction to the legislation, because of their support for Vladimir Putin. Netrebko was compelled to post this on her FB page:
"As an artist, it is my great joy to collaborate with all of my wonderful colleagues - regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. I have never and will never discriminate against anyone."
At the time, however, Gergiev said nothing on this matter, which led to a slow burn of protest against him and his concert appearances. Things took a much more inflammatory turn recently, with reports of a quote in the Dutch newspaper
De Volksrant from Gergiev about the legislation. Various bloggers have spread the news and the quote, which apparently translates:
"In Russia we do everything we can to protect children from paedophiles. This law is not about homosexuality, it targets paedophilia. But I have too busy a schedule to explore this matter in detail.”
In classical-music land, the reaction has been huge, by the standards of that relatively rarified realm. However, Gergiev finally was compelled to issue a public statement on the whole situation. More below the flip....
Stepping back in time a bit, a few days before this particular firestorm, on October 30, the British activist Peter Tatchell appeared on stage at the Barbican Centre, dressed in a tuxedo (good camouflage), and made a statement from the stage to protest Gergiev's support of Putin, disrupting the concert before the music began, per several reports:
(a) Martin Kettle, The Guardian, 11/1/13
(b) Pink News, 11/1/13:
On stage, Tatchell is reported as saying:
"Valery Gergiev is a friend, ally and supporter of the Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin, whose regime is arresting peaceful protesters and opposition leaders. Gergiev defends the new homophobic law that persecutes gay Russians. He sided with Putin against Pussy Riot. I ask you to oppose tyranny and show your support for the Russian people."
Tatchell was escorted from the stage, and then the concert proceeded. Later on, Tatchell further elaborated:
"Gergiev’s loyalty to Putin has been rewarded with personal honours and massive state grants for his pet projects. Gergiev is a great conductor but he colludes with a tyrant and shows little concern for freedom and equality.
"I may have annoyed some concert-goers but others seemed supportive. It was all over in two minutes. Gergiev’s performance was only briefly delayed. I never intended to disrupt the concert; only to make a short, symbolic statement.
"It was a solo protest because other people were understandably anxious about being arrested or being beaten up by the Barbican’s security staff.?
Several days later, on his blog
Orpheus Complex, the London-based blogger Gavin Dixon reported the inflammatory
Volksrant quote from Gergiev at
this post this past Monday:
"At the start of September, Gergiev spoke to the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant ahead of a festival in Rotterdam, and made the following comment about the contentious law: 'In Russia we do everything we can to protect children from paedophiles. This law is not about homosexuality, it targets paedophilia. But I have too busy a schedule to explore this matter in detail.'
Even on its own terms this statement is absurd. If the legislation is meant only to protect children, then why does it not outlaw all forms of sexual “propaganda” towards them? And if it is not about homosexuality, then why does the word even appear in the legislation?"
Other music writers have seized on this statement to lodge further protest against Gergiev, including the British writer and critic David Nice (author of a biography of Sergei Prokofiev, BTW), at the UK on-line arts blog
The Arts Desk, in
this commentary:
"What set Gergiev beyond the pale for me was the comment reported by a reader of my last article here on the issue of artists and Russia’s new institutionalized homophobia. He or she quoted Gergiev when questioned by a Rotterdam reporter about the laws making it a criminal offence not so much to promote as even to mention as significant an issue, say, as Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality to a minor. His reply? According to my commenter's translation from Volkskrant, 'This law is not about homosexuality; it targets paedophilia.'
And so the huge outrage anyone, gay or straight, ought to feel at this supreme insult – humans’ instinct to love where they will, and must, becomes an urge to defile children – boils over, as it did when Cardinal Bertone made his stupid remarks a few years back. But the Catholic Church under the apparently genuine humility of a noble Pope seems to have moved on. Russia has moved backwards."
Linking real-world circumstances and politics to artistic interpretation, In
one blog post on
The Guardian's "Comment is free" blog section, music critic Philip Clark states, and then asks:
'But now I believe his credibility as an interpreter of Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky, the two composers around which his reputation is built, has been shot to pieces. Does Gergiev, like Vladimir Medinsky, Russia's culture minister, believe that Tchaikovsky wasn't gay but merely "a person without a family"? Even Putin was forced to backtrack on that Comical Ali nonsense. But if Tchaikovsky's homosexuality is accepted, how can Gergiev continue to conduct his music in Russia against the backdrop of repression by a regime he helps maintain?'
Given all the backlash, Gergiev, or at least his PR staff, issued a statement under his name, as follows:
""I am aware of the gay rights protest that took place at the Barbican last week prior to my concert with the LSO. I have said before that I do not discriminate against anyone, gay or otherwise, and never have done, and as head of the Mariinsky Theatre this is our policy. It is wrong to suggest that I have ever supported anti-gay legislation and in all my work I have upheld equal rights for all people. I am an artist and have for over three decades worked with tens of thousands of people in dozens of countries from all walks of life and many of them are indeed my friends. I collaborate with and support all my colleagues in the endeavour for music and art. This is my focus as a conductor, musician, artist and as Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre and Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra."
Peter Tatchell had an op-ed on
The Guardian's "Comment is free" blog
, where he notes Gergiev's recent public statement, but then says:
"While his affirmation of personal non-discrimination is commendable, Gergiev's statement does not renounce his support for Putin, whose regime does discriminate against gay people."
David Nice and Gavin Dixon are perhaps a bit more conciliatory in their public reactions on their blogs, as follows:
(a) Dixon, 11/6/13:
'At the time, I speculated that even [Netrebko's FB post] was further than Gergiev would ever go, as the acknowledgement of gay rights, however abstract, would distance him from Putin. But in fact, Gergiev has gone further. Like Netrebko’s, his statement is very carefully worded, but it’s more explicit....
[Gergiev's statement as noted already]
The crucial wording here is “I do not discriminate against anyone, gay or otherwise.” It is very difficult to imagine Vladimir Putin using this phrase (even at his most Orwellian), and so a small gap does indeed appear between the views of the two men."
However, in parallel with Tatchell, Dixon further comments:
"It should also be noted that Gergiev doesn’t actually contradict any of his earlier statements. When he says “It is wrong to suggest that I have ever supported anti-gay legislation”, it is worth bearing in mind that his previous comments on the contentious law were to deny that it was “about homosexuality”. Now, in light of his professed support for “equal rights for all people”, we can chalk the apparent contradiction up to political naivety rather than malice.
And the committee tone of this statement does indeed suggest that minions behind the scenes have been working hard to pull Gergiev’s foot out of his mouth."
Perhaps there is an undertone of "grudingness", if that is a word, in Dixon's article, if that makes sense. It's as if he acknowledges that deep down, a 'boycott' wouldn't really work out.
(b) Nice, 11/6/13
"I applaud you for making this statement, which will go some way to satisfying the thousands of people who were hoping you would say or write something along just these lines several months back. And it coincides entirely with what I have observed of your behaviour and your inspired creative work within the musical world.
I feel for a certain difficulty in your current status and appreciate that it is as much as we could then have expected from you in what has become a compromised position – and indeed, from Anna Netrebko, who made just such a statement at that time. It was merely your silence which prompted the New York protests at the time of the Metropolitan Opera opening gala of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, as well as the desire to show solidarity with fellow human beings under threat in another country."
If David Nice seems rather overly concilatory, especially after going for it in his earlier "boycott" op-ed, you have to remember the beginning of his open letter to Gergiev:
"....we have met many times and always enjoyed the friendliest of relations, or so it seemed to me"
You also need to know that David Nice has often been invited to participate in pre-concert talks in London, particularly with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and in various UK cities. Obviously this kind of access allows him to meet major classical music artists like Gergiev, so in his own way, Nice has to tread carefully in what he says on matters like this. Yet he does go on to say to Gergiev:
'There is, as you well know from your experience of artists in the profession, no threat of corrupting others, of trying to "make people gay"- the only argument your politicians can come up with.....
Please do whatever is in your power to help the desperate situations of thousands in the country you, and I, love so much. And, if you can't bring yourself to say explicitly "these laws are wrong", retract that untenable equation of homosexuality and paedophilia or at least explain the context.'
I honestly doubt that Gergiev will retract that statement to
Volksrant, as Nice has asked Gergiev to do. Yet, as I briefly said in the earlier diary, I doubt that Gergiev is personally homophobic, but rather, more of a general all-purpose artistic tyrant type, i.e. "I treat all my artistic underlings with equal condescension, straight, gay, or whatever". This situation will probably continue to simmer on steady, slow back burner heating, but do just that, go on the classical media back burner gradually. That is, until the next 'foot in mouth' statement from Gergiev, or things come to more of a head as the Winter Olympics get closer.
Speaking just for myself, given where I live, Gergiev won't be performing in my neighborhood any time soon. If he appears anywhere in the USA, it would most likely be NYC, as he and the Mariinsky Orchestra have done at Carnegie Hall this fall. Thus 'boycotting' his concerts is a moot point for me. Likewise, I actually don't own any Gergiev recordings, nor do I plan to buy any. (I used to own some years back, but I've since traded them in at various establishments over the years.) I really don't know how all this will play out. But given the huge power and influence that Gergiev wields in classical music and opera land, attention must be paid, like it or not.
So with that, you can either:
(a) comment on this situation with Gergiev, Putin, and gay rights, or:
(b) observe the usual SNLC protocol.
Or you can do both. No reason that one can't do both ;) .