By Robert Croan
Palm Beach Opera has announced that Russian soprano Anna Netrebko will be the featured guest at the company’s annual Gala, to be held Feb. 5 at The Breakers Palm Beach resort.
She will partner with pianist Angel Rodriguez in a recital program to benefit Palm Beach Opera – “An Evening with Anna Netrebko” – and the event will be the singer’s Palm Beach Opera debut.
The annual gala is considered by many to be the major social event in South Florida. It includes a cocktail hour, a recital performance and a dinner with dancing, for which ticket prices start at $1,250 per person. Proceeds raised from the gala will be used for the company’s educational programs, which provides young artists with individual and group training along with opportunities to perform in mainstage productions and community-based performances.
The choice of Netrebko is a controversial one. The Russian singer, who will be 53 on Sept. 18, is one of opera’s most famous luminaries, but she has not performed in the United States since 2019. Because she is known as a personal friend and close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, and has steadfastly refused to criticize him or his policies – notably on LGBTQ+ rights and more recently, the war in Ukraine – the Metropolitan Opera and other American companies have refused to engage her, although she continued to perform in major European venues.
As far back as 2013, at the opening night of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, there were demonstrations provoked by Netrebko’s silence regarding Putin’s anti-gay policies. In 2015, at one of her curtain calls, a protester jumped the orchestra pit and climbed on stage waving a sign. (He was arrested.) There were also protests when she appeared with the Berlin State Opera.
Netrebko subsequently issued public statements that she is not connected with Putin and does not condone the war. She also sued the Met for, among other things, discriminating against her for being
Russian, defamatory statements to the press, breach of contracts and lost work. The Met, unsurprisingly, disputed this.
Palm Beach Opera, with its proximity to Mar-a-Lago and supporters who may be more in tune with the soprano’s Russian sympathies, is perhaps the most appropriate setting for her return to this country.
The singer avoided controversy in her prepared statement, which reads, in part, “I am honored to be lending my voice to Palm Beach Opera’s annual gala … and to be supporting the PBO’s inspiring initiatives.” PBO general director James Barbato called the coming event a “historic evening,” lauding the soprano as “a cultural icon [whose] long-awaited return to the US is not to be missed.”
Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb, however, said PBO had made an “unfortunate decision,” claiming that Netrebko’s efforts to distance herself from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were “disingenuous.” The exchange continued in the media, with Gelb saying, “she can sing a recital at the Met tomorrow if it was to benefit Ukraine,” and the singer’s manager, Miguel Esteban, retorting that “Anna Netrebko will be happy to return to the Metropolitan Opera — after the departure of its current general director.”