#anna-netrebko

#anna-netrebko

The opera is about individuals caught up in the brutal mundanity of the machinery and power of a repressive state. Playing Tosca is the great diva Anna Netrebko, now an Austrian citizen but born Russian, and described in The Times as a symbol of cultural propaganda for the Russian regime'. The singer has criticised the war without attacking Putin personally. For individual artists caught up in this geopolitical nightmare the pressures are clearly immense.

After a summer of institutional mishaps to raise the pulse of the most hardened spin doctor, the Royal Ballet and Opera's new season was audible far beyond the venue. Shame on you, chanted protesters over a powerful PA system outside. Some, standing amid yellow and blue flags, simply held placards. Art is not neutral, read one. And indeed it isn't, though opera's entanglements in international geopolitics are rarely as visible as at Covent Garden in recent months.