Zaluzhnyi appeals to Britain over russian Netrebko’s planned performance at London Opera

The Ambassador of Ukraine to the UK, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, has urged not to allow the aggressor country of russia to use art as a cover to hide its crimes. The corresponding appeal of the former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was published in a column for the Daily Mail on Monday, September 8.

Zaluzhnyi noted that this week, russian soprano Anna Netrebko, who was a confidant of russian dictator putin in 2012 and was photographed with the flag of the fake “Novorossiya”, will perform at the Royal Opera House in London. The Ambassador stressed that the singer was not a “victim of circumstances”, but had repeatedly met with putin in the kremlin, posed for official photos, received state awards, that is, she consciously made her choice.

Seeing the singer on the big stage in Britain, which is one of our biggest and closest allies in the war against russia, is painful for Ukrainians, Zaluzhnyi stressed. After perhaps the most massive shelling of Kyiv in all time, in which the russians killed an infant, Ukraine once again saw this blurring of responsibility and the thesis of culture beyond politics.

The Ukrainian Ambassador called the return of such figures a justification for russian aggression against Ukraine and a disrespect for the memory of thousands of dead Ukrainians. Zaluzhnyi called for not using art as a veil to hide russia’s crimes and not allowing people like Netrebko to stand on the world stage as if nothing had happened.

“When you applaud Tosca, remember: those tears on stage are echoes of the real tears of Ukrainian children. When you listen to the arias, remember that this voice for decades shielded a dictator,” Zaluzhnyi emphasized.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, in August 2024, russian opera singer Anna Netrebko was invited to the new production of “Tosca” by the Roman Opera.

On August 6, the Embassy of Ukraine in Italy called on the Mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri and the Director of the Roman Opera Francesco Giambrone to cancel Netrebko’s performance.

Recall that in September 2023, the Ambassador of Ukraine to Germany Oleksii Makeiev reported that in Germany, the Berlin State Opera would not cancel Netrebko’s participation in the production of “Macbeth.”