The reason for canceling the concert is Netrebko’s ambiguous attitude towards the war in Ukraine and in connection with the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, the management of the Lucerne Culture and Congress Center stated.
The municipality assumed that Netrebko’s appearance on the stage in the city could cause protests.
“The government believes that a Russian artist who is apparently loyal to the regime should not perform with us,” Armin Hartmann, a member of Lucerne’s government council, told Regionaljournal Zentralschweiz.
The government of the canton of Lucerne has asked the concert hall to revise its program.
Another reason for canceling the concert was the conference dedicated to the situation in Ukraine, which will be held in Lucerne in June.
The local government was worried that Netrebko’s concert and a conference dedicated to the Ukrainian war could lead to riots around the same time.
In 2012, Netrebko registered as a confidant of Putin and his election campaign.
In 2014, she supported the annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of Donbass.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she declared that she condemned the war, but would continue to be a patriot of Russia and its culture.
Netrebko lives in Vienna and is the leading soloist of the Vienna Opera.
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