Josef Kaspar, who arrived in Paris on July 31 and was to go to England in ten days Henry Kasper, who is spending the Summer in England Mr. Fabian and Frank Norris Jones, of the Washington College of Music, who were to spend the. Lovette, of Baylor College, Tex., the latter formerly Eva Whitford, of Washington S. Otto Torney Simon, who were last heard from in Denmark, on the eve of departure for England Dr.
"They have public funding and in the eyes of the world, talking about the Bolshoi and talking about the Russian state is the same thing," said Bayle.In the national capital there has been worry as to the welfare of the following: Mr. If the current war ends in a long-term occupation of Ukraine, "it is certain that no one will risk inviting Russian artists," he added.Įxceptions will clearly be made for those who have themselves been victims of Putin's regime or openly denounce it.īut state-backed institutions like the Bolshoi and Mariinsky are unlikely to get a pass. "Three-quarters of their activity has been called into question." "They will remain in their own country," he told AFP.
Laurent Bayle, former director-general of the Philharmonie de Paris, said it leaves little for these artists to do outside Russia, especially since China remains almost entirely closed off due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The wrath fell especially on two superstars seen as close to Putin.Ĭonductor Valery Gergiev, considered among the greatest of his generation, was stripped of his role as head of the Munich Philharmonic, and declared persona non grata in many theatres and by his own agent.Īnd the soprano Anna Netrebko, international queen of opera, is cancelling her performances at the Met. Laurent Hilaire, the French head of the Moscow Stanislavski Ballet, quit his post of five years. Russian choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, a former head of the Bolshoi who grew up in Kyiv, abandoned a new ballet he was putting together in Moscow and rushed back to his home in New York. The Bolshoi's trip to London this summer has been cancelled. The Met has ceased its collaboration with the Bolshoi, and will boycott all pro-Putin artists, a decision also taken by the Paris Opera and many other venues around Europe. "In the current context of brutality against innocent citizens, there is no possibility of making exchanges like those during the Cold War," said Gelb. Suddenly, it has become unimaginable once again.
Once unimaginable, an American, David Hallberg, became a principal dancer of the Bolshoi in 2011. The West sent its emissaries in the other direction: the American Ballet Theatre performed for the first time in Moscow in 1960, followed two years later by the New York City Ballet, in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis.Īfter the collapse of the USSR, exchanges intensified, with star Russian dancers invited everywhere and even becoming lead members of companies in the West, such as Svetlana Zakharova, the "tsarina" of dance, who had principal dancer roles at both the Bolshoi and Scala in Milan. Some of those trips have gone down in history: the Bolshoi's visit to London in 1956, or the first tour by the Kirov (later renamed the Mariinsky) to Paris in 1961, during which the legendary dancer Rudolph Nureyev defected. Ballet was a particular source of "soft power" for the Soviet Union, and tours to the West began in the 1950s - though always under tight surveillance by both their hosts and their KGB minders.