21.08 Gay Rights Petition Puts Glaring Spotlight on Russian Opera Stars
WASHINGTON, August 20 (By Maria Young for RIA Novosti) It would be tough to imagine a more awkward, more delicate circumstance than the one in which two famous Russians, opera diva Anna Netrebko and world-renowned conductor Valery Gergiev, now find themselves.
They are both under pressure from an online petition asking the New York Metropolitan Opera to dedicate its Sept. 23 opening night gala, which features the two stars performing Tchaikovskys Eugene Onegin, to the support of gay people.
The almost comic irony of these people, performing a work by Tchaikovsky, everyone in the world knows Tchaikovsky was a homosexual. And the idea that these people would be in a sense just dancing on his grave, it just makes no sense, said composer Andrew Rudin, who launched the petition, in an interview Tuesday with RIA Novosti.
Both Netrebko and Gergiev were vocal supporters of the 2012 campaign of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who signed a law this summer banning the promotion of non-traditional relationships to minors, a move that has outraged the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) community and its supporters in the United States and elsewhere.
Proponents say the law shields children from harmful influences.
Rudin said the two stars are too big for Putin to touch, and therefore have an obligation to speak out on behalf of gay people in Russia.
Theyre being handsomely paid. They make an international career because they are authorities of his music. But when you see two people who have cozied up to Vladimir Putin and have been basically cheerleaders for him in his campaign for reelection, I frankly think they could never have imagined that by supporting him they would find themselves in this position, he added.
The petition started on July 31 and the number of signers jumped from roughly 2,200 on Monday to more than 5,000 on Tuesday, after several US media stories on the petition.
Many of those who signed the petition and those who commented on a New York Times article about it on Monday are pushing for Netrebko and Gergiev, as well as the Met, to get behind the movement.
Does anyone think Gergiev and Netrebko didn't know what they were doing as
