The Munich Philharmonic Orchestra has decided to “separate” of the conductor Valery Gergiev, reputed to be close to Vladimir Putin, announced Tuesday the mayor of the German city, who criticizes the maestro for not having denounced the invasion of Ukraine.
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“Munich is parting ways with principal conductor Valery Gergiev. There will therefore be no more concerts of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra under his direction from now on”explained in a press release the mayor of the Bavarian city Dieter Reiter.
Last Friday, Dieter Reiter gave Valery Guergiev until Monday to “distancing clearly and categorically” of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But the prestigious 68-year-old conductor, one of the most sought after in the world, has maintained his silence. “I would have expected him to reconsider and revise his very positive assessment of the Russian leader. He didn’t.”regrets the mayor of Munich.
“In the current situation, however, it would have been essential to send a clear signal to the orchestra, to its audience, to public opinion and to the politics of the city in order to be able to continue to work together”he says. “As this has not been the case, there remains only an immediate separation”concludes Dieter Reiter.
Besides his main activity as a conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, Valery Gergiev is also the general director of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.
In 2018 during an interview with AFP, Valery Gergiev welcomed the re-election for a fourth term of Mr. Putin, whom he said he was meeting “five to six times a year”.
His closeness to Vladimir Putin, whom he has known since 1992, and his loyalty to the Russian president, particularly during the annexation of Crimea, as well as his participation in concerts in bombarded South Ossetia and in Palmyra alongside the Syrian army, have earned him much controversy over the past decade.
His American tour in 2015 was disrupted by demonstrations by opponents of Putin accusing him of defending the annexation of Crimea by Russia.
“20 years ago Russia was at rock bottom. I’m not saying that Putin single-handedly restored it to international prominence, but I’m afraid it did.”he believed at the time.
So far, none of these positions had prevented him from conducting a concert. But his refusal to disavow the military aggression unleashed in Ukraine by Putin changed the situation.
As soon as the Russian offensive in Ukraine was launched, several orchestras and festivals in Europe and the United States canceled their engagements with the musician.
On Monday, the Philharmonie de Paris as well as the prestigious Swiss festival of Lucerne announced that it had canceled several dates of its concerts as a sign of “solidarity” with “the Ukrainian people”.
In Switzerland, the Verbier Festival, then the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, the world’s largest live performance event, asked for and accepted the resignation of Valery Gergiev from the post of musical director of their orchestra.
On Friday, the famous New York hall Carnegie Hall had dismissed the Russian conductor from a series of performances. On Sunday, it was his German artistic agent, Marcus Felsner, who decided to stop representing Gergiev.
Saluting “one of the greatest conductors of all time”he explained on Facebook that he could no longer defend the interests of his client “Who will not, or will not be able to, publicly end their longstanding support for a regime that has committed such crimes.”
Charismatic, the Russian maestro with a three-day beard had also been the subject of strong criticism for his hyperactivity – up to 275 concerts a year – sometimes implying a lack of rigor.
After eight years at the head of the London Symphony Orchestra, he was particularly singled out by the English daily The Guardian for his concerts in “routine and sometimes ill-prepared”. The same reproaches had been addressed to him in Munich later.