In the last 10 days an interesting fight started in Italy over defending culture from the hysterical witch hunt which has hit Russian artists such as conductor Valery Gergiev, whom La Scala in Milan fired, after Carnegie Hall, because he refused to make a statement against Putin.
In strong contrast with La Scala, the San Carlo Opera Theater in Naples gave an example of how culture and music should be the key for peace. At the end of a performance of Verdi’s Aida the two sopranos, singing Aida and Amneris, Russian and Ukrainian, hugged each other on stage, and all other singers and the audience applauded them. (A beautiful photograph of the embrace is available online, on “fanpage.it”)
