"Everything has changed... Nothing will ever be the same again." These bittersweet words, which could be lyrics sung by an operatic heroine, are the subject of the interview that Anna Netrebko gave us on May 16. But we are in Vienna, in real life, and the Russian soprano, who was preparing to perform a recital on May 25 at the Philharmonie de Paris, has seen her world turned upside down. First by the pandemic. Then the war.
The virus? She decided from the start not to worry too much about it, wary of the "paranoid excesses" deployed against Covid-19. The result: she fell ill as soon as the Bolshoi Theatre reopened. "I caught the virus twice," she says. "In September 2020, and then in March with the Omicron variant, a much less severe form." In Moscow, the singer found herself, on September 18, 2020, "celebrating" her 49th birthday in a hospital, bedridden by severe pneumonia. "I had a fever, but I could sing," she explains, demonstrating with a full-blooded note. "I was actually back on stage very quickly."
From adulation to suspicion
She has one of the most beautiful voices in the world of opera. A pulpy timbre, powerful breath and a technique of steel powering a career whose development towards increasingly dramatic roles seems to defy the laws of physiology. After 20 years at the peak of fame, the tide suddenly turned, adulation giving way to suspicion, even rejection. It began with a decision made by New York's Metropolitan Opera (the Met) in the days following the Russian army's invasion of Ukraine.
On February 25 and 26, the soprano spoke out against the war, before informing the Zurich Opera on March 1 that she was temporarily withdrawing from musical life. On the phone, the relationship between Peter Gelb, the head of the Met, and the star singer was respectful, even cordial. On March 3, Mr. Gelb announced the cancellation of Turandot, which the Russian diva was supposed to perform in April and May. He also cancelled Verdi's Don Carlo, initially scheduled for 2023, voicing his doubts about the soprano's possible return. "The Met was the first to insist that I clarify my position," explained Ms. Netrebko. "Which I did. But I was also asked to declare myself against Vladimir Putin. I replied that I had a Russian passport, that he was still the president and that I could not say these words publicly. So I refused."
All of the soprano's productions at the Met in New York are in question, as are the performances she had booked until May 2026. This was a real shock.
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