Anna Netrebko was a trusted representative of Vladimir Putin during elections and received awards from him
Several hundred protesters have gathered outside the Royal Opera House in London. They call for the cancellation of concerts by Russian opera singer Anna Netrebko after organisers ignored similar demands.
Source: Radio Liberty
Details: Ukrainian Ambassador to the UK Valerii Zaluzhnyi also spoke out against Netrebko.
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Meanwhile, tickets for all events have been sold out. In the 2025/26 season at the Royal Opera House, Netrebko is scheduled to perform the lead role in Puccini’s Tosca in a new production by Jakub Hrůša and Oliver Mears, the lead role in Turandot, and a solo concert. Her first appearance on stage is planned for 11 September.
Protesters stood outside the opera house with Ukrainian and UK flags and holding cardboard signs calling for the concerts to be cancelled and the soprano replaced.
One of the protesters, Stephen Lacey, told Radio Liberty that as an Englishman, he felt ashamed of the Royal Opera’s hypocrisy and of how they have betrayed Ukraine. He called this a disgrace for the British nation and said that it deeply affected him, because Anna is close to Putin, and Russian artists are allowed to perform while Ukrainian artists are sacrificing their lives.
In a column for the UK newspaper Daily Mail, Ambassador Valerii Zaluzhnyi stressed that for Ukrainians, Netrebko’s participation is unacceptable, and that the singer is not a victim of circumstances, as she portrays herself:
“Her voice on stage drowns out the real cries – the cries from destroyed maternity hospitals in Mariupol, schools in Kharkiv, kindergartens in Kramatorsk.
And while Netrebko will sing about an imagined tragedy, for us these sounds echo a real one. Tosca will be weeping with the tears of Ukrainian children.”
He added that Netrebko’s voice on the international stage is a tool of cultural influence that legitimises killings in Ukraine.
“This is not just a cultural occasion. This is a test. Will we allow Putin to use art as a curtain to hide his crimes? Will we allow his closest allies to stand on the world’s stages as if nothing has happened?
Russia always tries to smuggle betrayal into the very soul. It does so under beautiful words, under music, under the guise of culture. But behind this mask of high art lies blood and ruins,” Zaluzhnyi wrote.
Protest outside the Royal Opera House, 7 September 2025
Photo: Radio Liberty
Earlier, an appeal to the opera’s administration not to allow Netrebko to perform in London was signed by over 50 Ukrainian cultural figures, as well as UK, French, and New Zealand politicians and activists.
Among the signatories are Ukrainian writers Andrii Kurkov, Serhii Zhadan and Kateryna Babkina, diplomat Serhii Kyslytsia, Holodomor researcher Daria Mattingly and political science professor Olha Onukh, as well as former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, UK politician Alex Sobel, and many others.
The letter to the Royal Opera House says that it now faces a defining choice: between status and responsibility, between profit and values, between silence and conscience. The signatories urged the opera house to remain on the ethical side of art and history.
Who is Anna Netrebko
Anna Netrebko is a Russian opera singer who, since 2006, has also held Austrian citizenship, where she currently resides. She was a trusted representative of Vladimir Putin during the elections and received awards from him. In 2014, the singer supported the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics and was photographed with the flag of the so-called Novorossiya. In 2022, under pressure from her European agents, she issued an anti-war statement, hoping to continue her career in Europe.
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