SOLD OUT: Not so Soft and not so Subtle Art of Capitulation

July 18, 2025

By Irina Tarsis

On July 27, 2025, Valery Gergiev, laureate of many prestigious awards, once the top-paid cultural figure in the Russian Federation, ^{and a personal friend of President Vladimir V. Putin was scheduled to conduct a concert at the Reggia di Caserta, outside of Naples, in Italy. All this, from public sources. What?! Reader may be as incensed as this author by this bit of summer news. What is this staunch Kremlin-supporter conductor doing returning to Italy, having made no amends? And what is his name doing on the Center for Art Law page?! What about the unwritten ban on Gergiev from European tours and our general exclusion of non-visual art law topics? Sometimes, exceptions prove the rule. The fine line between what is legal, permissible and morally dubious certainly applies to all arts forms, including the visual.}

There certainly have been colorful and controversial cultural figures, in addition to Gergiev, think Leni Riefenstahl and Somerset Maugham just to name a couple– brilliant and impactful, while advancing political agendas during the Nazi, Soviet, and now Putin eras. As this author is reading The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and their Century-long Mission to Infiltrate the West of Shaun Walker, to avoid reading the news, the optics of Gergiev readying to step out again onto the European stage (literally and figuratively), after being unwelcome there since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly three and a half years ago, is notable. Not illegal on its face, but certainly in poor taste and lacking judgement.

About the Festival

According to information provided about the concert on the Scabec site, the summer festival Un’Estate da RE was conceived by Vincenzo De Luca, President of the Campania Region, to promote both the region and its musical excellence. According to Scabec, “La grande musica alla Reggia di Caserta has now become a fixed appointment in the summer season, of great appeal to tourists as well, thanks to a very high-profile programme and a location of great charm: the Reggia di Caserta.” ^{This cultural event is of lower caliber than the better known festivals, such as Edinburgh International Festival, Verona Opera Festival, Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, Salzburg Festival, or Tanglewood in Lenox Massachusetts and Bayreuth Festival in Germany. Nevertheless, the 9th edition of the Un’Estate da RE is scheduled from July 19 to 31, and the tickets are selling. July 27 is reserved for Gergiev’s first return to a European stage since his failure to denounce the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022 and his ongoing support of the current Kremlin regime.}

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Tickets, priced at a modest €20-30, are still on sale. According to the seating chart, less than a quarter have been sold at the time of this writing. In addition to sale tickets, funding for the specific concert and the festival in general is provided in part by the Italian authorities, the Campania local government, MIC, the Reggia di Caserta Directorate, the Caserta Municipality and the Teatro Municipale ‘Giuseppe Verdi’ di Salerno. The event is organized and promoted by Scabec, “the in-house company of the Campania Region for the valorisation of cultural heritage.”

Musicians scheduled to perform on July 27 include the Salerno Philharmonic Orchestra “G. Verdi” and heavy hitters from Gergiev’s home theater in St. Petersburg: Elena Luferova (violin), Iurii Afonkin (viola), and Lev Bespalov (cello). The program features three classical favorites: Verdi, La Forza del destino, Overture (for those who insist on hearing this piece conducted by Gergiev can listen to the 2006 recording on YouTube), Tchaikovsky, Sinfonia n.5 in Mi minore Op. 64, and Ravel, Boléro. Who would not enjoy coming to Italy in the summer to either perform or listen to these compositions? Here is another rhetorical question, why did the organizers not invite another conductor? What were they thinking?

When confronted with public outcry over the 2025 Edition, in at least one interview De Luca mentioned the need for dialogue and ceasefire, noting that cultural figures, people of dell’Arte, do not make political decisions, they do not hold political power. Unlike other talent, Gergiev must have political power aplenty.

Comments from the Opposition

When news of Gergiev participation in the Un’Estate da RE broke, local cultural leaders and critics, political figures and activists complained that inviting the maestro was worse than a tone deaf move. Many individual efforts have been launched in Italy appealing to the powers that be to un-invite Gergiev. ^{Certainly, there are many other talented conductors who would be honored and able to conduct instead. With the public pressure mounting, even the Italian Ministry of Culture criticized Campania’s decision to feature Gergiev. Industry insiders speculated that Gergiev must have taken a serious pay cut for the opportunity to return to Italy and shine. By contrast, others suspected that the concert organizers were able to negotiate an excellent deal to have a star of this caliber participate in their festival.}

On July 12, 2025, Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) President Paul Grod, together with representatives of over 30 Ukrainian arts organizations, signed a letter urging Italian representatives to rescind the invitation. ^{On July 15, the widow of the opposition leader Alexey Navalny wrote an opinion piece for la Repubblica “Il maestro Gergiev complice dei peggiori crimini di Putin, non fatelo dirigere a Caserta,” an appeal to cancel the concert. The Navalny team also released a video message appealing to the court of public opinion and the concert organizers in Italy to cancel the performance due to Gergiev’s prominent support of the current Russian regime.}

How did We Get Here?

Valery Gergiev, objectively speaking, is one of the greatest conductors of his generation, likely within the top 100. Not being musically gifted, hence visual arts, this author understandably relies on public records and the equivalent of ChatGPT for background. The 72-year-old is currently the General Director and Artistic Director of not one, but two major theaters in Russia: the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg and the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. He is also the director of the local summer festival, White Nights Festival (now in its 33rd year). In his pre-2022 life, Gergiev was the chief conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic, which too sounds impressive enough.

Born in 1953, Gergiev enrolled at the Leningrad Music Conservatory at the age of 19, and by 25 he was already an assistant conductor. ^{By 35 he became chief conductor of Kirov Theater in Leningrad, which became the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. The English-language Wikipedia page indicates that Gergiev’s career outside the Soviet Union began in 1985, at the age of 32, with a concert at the Litchfield Festival in the UK. Apparently three years later he would return as a guest conductor at the London Symphony Orchestra. Gergiev was able to accomplish much and lay the foundation for much more all before the collapse of the Soviet Union.}

According to ru.wikipedia.com, Gergiev won the Herbert von Karajan competition for young conductors in Berlin in 1976 (according to The Guardian he was in Berlin in 1977 and was awarded second position with no-one earning first position) at the age of 23 or 24 (as sources vary), arriving in the city and country firmly divided by the Berlin Wall.

Like the 18th century visitors from Imperial Russia in North America, Gergiev’s exploration of the United States began with concerts on the West Coast. He soon made his way across the country to New York City, where he conducted numerous (maybe countless) performances, including many at the Metropolitan Opera (where he was a principal guest conductor for many years) and the Carnegie Hall. As a result of his hard work and investments, Gergiev, who is a father of four, was reported to own various properties in Italy, United States and elsewhere. ^{Information about his international tours, accolades, and recordings can be found across the web, including multiple Wikipedia articles in different languages – English, Russian and German being most instructive.}

Masks (or were they gloves?) began coming off quickly after February 24th, 2022. In Italy specifically, La Scala in Milan demanded that Gergiev declare his support of a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine or forfeit his engagement conducting Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades. ^{In March 2022, Gergiev was dismissed from the Munich Philharmonic and suspended from performing in any and all unfriendly countries, having refused to condemn the 2022 Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Carnegie Hall in New York canceled the May 2022 performance with Gergiev, while Vienna Philharmonic substituted another conductor for the US tour later in the year. Gergiev’s decision not to condemn the 2022 Invasion led to significant professional consequences: lost revenue and audiences, ejection from the best stages and festivals, termination from the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, and loss of his foreign member honorary position at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.}

Since then Gergiev’s career and net worth have taken a hit. In 2022, he reportedly sold some of his foreign property, including that in Milan. ^{Upon his return to Russia, Gergiev had been touring mostly in Russia, and also gave concerts in China (2023) and Turkey (2024). He was personally sanctioned by Ukraine in 2022 and by Canada in 2025. A coveted return to Italy would have offered a welcome realignment and access to ears, hearts, and wallets of people willing to enjoy ‘art’ and close their eyes to the politics and total human toll of the ongoing war.}

Soft Power of International Cultural Exchanges and Property Rights

The soft power of the arts is a potent and much exploited tool. Cultural exchanges that include touring performing and visual arts have been able to bring long term benefit where political and military posturing could not. In 1965 for example, when Gergiev was nearly a teenager, the United States enacted the Immunity from Judicial Seizure Statute (22 U.S.C. 2459), which immunized art loans imported into the United States for temporary exhibition to facilitate international cultural exchanges and museum exhibitions. It was intended specifically to encourage art loans from the Soviet Union that was doggedly holding on to World War II trophy collections and private property of nationalized collections after the Soviet revolution in the 1920s. The 1965 law, first of its kind postponed if not prevented title disputes for artworks in institutions abroad and put them on display in American institutions for the public to see outside of the ownership narrative. Delaying resolution of festering title disputes did allow for an interaction with art held elsewhere and enabled cooperations between curators and scholars across national borders but the problems did not go away permanently. Bringing art objects for exhibition is different, however, from inviting an apparatchik of the Kremlin to command a stage in one of the EU countries that keep levying sanctions against the Russian Federation in attempts to stifle their war efforts.

While the controversy around the very real possibility of welcoming Gergiev back to Italy on July 27 continued to escalate, back in Moscow in the Bolshoi Theatre, the 249th season was winding down with a revival of Sergei Prokofiev’s opera Semyon Kotko (written in 1938, premiered in 1940) about a soldier returning home to Ukraine after fighting in World War I. ^{The revival premiered on July 17, with music director Valery Gergiev himself conducting, with a photo of a modern day Russian soldier appearing on the screen together with a text [“In February 2022, the Russian Army came to the aid of residents of Donbas who had been fighting for their life and freedom for 8 years. As a result of a […] referendum, the Lugansk Oblast returned forever to Russia.”] This overtly political message followed another all aimed at an audience drawn to culture, including Gergiev’s artistry.}

Also on July 17, The Violin Channel reported that the Italian Ministry of Culture reversed its initial decision allowing Gergiev to perform in Italy and cancelled his concert.  ^{News and wishful thinking, travel at different pace. For now, the Festival website is up and running and the tickets for the concert could still be purchased. So far, no other English-language publication picked up on the The Violin Channel‘s scoop.}

For now, there is also a letter started by Memorial Italia open for endorsements calling for cancellation of the Concert and an investigation into the sources and uses of funds associated with the proposed performance on the 27th.  If the concert is cancelled, ticket purchases will probably be refunded and Gergiev may sue the organizers for breach of contract (unless there is a force majeure provision, such as public outrage over Kremlin propaganda and injustice).

In Conclusion:

At the end of the Navalny Team video (released July 10, with approximately 1.5K views and 85 likes as of July 17), the message seems simple: “Don’t give oxygen to Russian propaganda. Cultural dialogue must continue but without known supporters of dictatorship.” Alessandro Giuli, the Italian Cultural Minister agrees, having stated that “Art is free and cannot be censored. Propaganda, however, even if done with talent, is something else.”

Perhaps missing Gergiev live is a palpable loss to some. It cannot compare with loss visited upon the civilian in Ukraine let’s say in just the month of June 2025. This latest Gergiev controversy exemplifies the complex nexus of supporting the arts and talented individuals, challenging power of national cultural policy, and moral imperatives that define contemporary world, art, and law. Gergiev’s scheduled return raises fundamental questions about government funding for artists with problematic political affiliations, highlighting the delicate balance between artistic freedom and state-sponsored propaganda, between cultural expression and democratic principles. When and if featuring artists with problematic political affiliations is permissible? There certainly is a delicate balance between inviting someone to conduct Bolero and opening a floodgate to state-sponsored propagandists, between ability to practice and gift one’s craft and intentional disregard of the rights of others.

These issues transcend the boundaries of any single artistic discipline, revealing how legal and ethical considerations thread through all cultural endeavors. The Center for Art Law publishes this opinion precisely because exceptions like Gergiev’s case illuminate broader principles that govern the arts ecosystem. While we typically focus on visual arts, the fine line between what is right, permissible, and morally dubious applies universally across all artistic and humanistic forms. The Gergiev case reminds us that in our interconnected world, no artistic endeavor exists in a vacuum, free of legal and ethical considerations.

UPDATED on July 22, 2025: On  Monday, the 21st of July, the concert finally was cancelled.  While the concert is still mentioned on the Scabec Site, tickets may no longer be purchased.

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About the Author:

Irina Tarsis is the Founding Director of the Center for Art Law.

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