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By Lora Korpar
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Russian opera singer Anna Netrebko will no longer perform with the Metropolitan Opera due to her refusal to condemn her home country's invasion of Ukraine.
Officials at the Met attempted to convince Netrebko, who made her debut at the opera house in 2002, to retract but failed, an anonymous source told the Associated Press. Met General Manager Peter Gelb had said Sunday he would not employ artists who support Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Netrebko's exit comes just days after Valery Gergiev, a Russian conductor, was fired from two orchestras for the same reason, showing music organizations around the world are taking a stance against Putin's unprompted invasion and shelling of Ukrainian cities.
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"It is a great artistic loss for the Met and for opera," Gelb said in a Thursday statement. "Anna is one of the greatest singers in Met history, but with Putin killing innocent victims in Ukraine, there was no way forward."
In a statement Netrebko posted to Facebook on Saturday, the famous soprano said though she is opposed to the war and wants "people to be able to live in peace," she does not want to denounce her home country, adding that she is "not a political person."
"Forcing artists, or any public figure, to voice their political opinions in public and to denounce their homeland is not right," she wrote. "This should be a free choice."
In 2014, Netrebko received backlash after making a donation of one million rubles to an opera house in Donetsk, a Ukrainian city part of the Donbas region that has been the site of a Russia-backed separatist movement for years, and posing with the movement's "Novorossiya," or "New Russia," flag.
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Netrebko has been associated with Putin for years. In a 2011 interview with Newsweek, she addressed a rumor that she was Putin's lover by saying "I'd have loved to have been, but when? We only met twice. Officially and briefly."
"But he's a very attractive man," she added. "Such a strong, male energy."
Two days before the Met's announcement, Opernhaus Zürich released a statement saying Netrebko would also withdraw from her performances at the Swiss venue scheduled for later this month.
"As a matter of principle, we do not consider it appropriate to judge the decisions and actions of citizens of repressive regimes based on the perspective of those living in a Western European democracy," the statement said. "At the same time, we are forced to recognize that our decisive condemnation of Vladimir Putin and his actions is not compatible with Anna Netrebko's public position."
Netrebko said in a statement that she would step back from performing in general for the time being.
"This is not a time for me to make music and perform," she said.
Update 03/03/22, 3:15 p.m. ET: This story was updated to add more information.
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