A concert planned at the Caserta Royal Palace, near Naples, on July 27 was cancelled this morning by the venue’s directors, after two weeks of continuous pressure and letters to Campania Governor De Luca, who had invited Maestro Valery Gergiev, and had no intention of cancelling. The famous Russian conductor was planning to conduct the Philharmonic Orchestra of the G. Verdi Orchestra in Salerno, and soloists from the Mariinski theater in St. Petersburg, in the Overture of Verdi’s Forza del Destino, Čajkovskij’s Symphony Nr. 5 Op. 64 and Ravel’s Bolero.
The racist campaign to cancel the concert started with a letter to De Luca from President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, followed by many more pressure tactics from an Italian member of the European Parliament, belonging to the Italian Democratic Party, and the Italian government of Giorgia Meloni to cancel it, but De Luca refused to do so and declared “these people want to cancel a concert, but say not a word about Gaza.” De Luca said, “We have invited artists of all nations, also with contrasts among them,” defending the idea that culture is universal and has nothing to do with politics. However, many tickets for the concert were bought by members of the Ukrainian community, with the intention of creating a provocation, or even a murder attempt during the concert, and the directorate decided to cancel the concert for “security reasons.”
The Italian Democratic Party has nothing “democratic” about it. They prevented De Luca, who belonged to this party until he realized they were pro-war, to run for a third term, despite the fact that he was elected with 70% of the votes.
An open letter of apology to Maestro Gergiev was written by an Italian journalist Vincenzo Lorusso in Lugansk, who states: “as Italians, we are ashamed of this climate of cultural persecution and oppose all forms of censorship. As human beings, we apologize.” It was signed by many Italian musicians, including Liliana Gorini, soprano and chairwoman of Movisol, and Carlo Levi Minzi, pianist, who studied in Russia.
