After the cancellation by several orchestras and festivals of their engagements with this star of the concert halls, following the Russian offensive in Ukraine, it was his main employer, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, which fired him on Tuesday.

“Munich is parting with principal conductor Valery Gergiev. There will therefore be no more concerts of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra under his direction”, announced the mayor of the Bavarian city Dieter Reiter.

On Friday, Mr. Reiter gave Mr. Guergiev until Monday to "clearly and categorically distance himself" from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

But the 68-year-old conductor, one of the busiest in the world, remained silent as the ultimatums piled up against him.

"I would have expected him to reconsider and revise his very positive assessment of the Russian leader. He did not do it", regrets the mayor of Munich.

Russian conductor Valery Gergiev conducts a concert in the amphitheater of Palmyra in Syria, May 5, 2016 Vadim Grishankin Russian Defense Ministry/AFP

"In the current situation, however, it would have been essential to send a clear signal to the orchestra, to its public, to public opinion and to the politics of the city in order to be able to continue to work together", specifies- he.

Regular meetings with Putin

In addition to his activity at the head of the Munich Philharmonic, since 2015, this hyperactive and controversial maestro has also been the general director of the prestigious Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg, the birthplace of the Russian president.

His closeness to Vladimir Putin, whom he has known since 1992, and his loyalty to the leader, have earned him much controversy over the past decade, particularly during his participation in concerts in bombarded South Ossetia and, in 2016 in Palmyra, in Syria, alongside the army of Bashar al-Assad's regime.

His American tour in 2015 was disrupted by demonstrations by opponents of Putin accusing him of defending the annexation of Crimea by Russia.

Russian conductor Valery Gergiev after his appointment to the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra in Germany, in Munich on November 17, 2013 MARC MUELLER DPA/AFP/Archives

In 2018 during an interview with AFP, Mr. Gergiev welcomed the re-election for a fourth term of Mr. Putin, whom he said he met "five to six times a year".

"20 years ago Russia was at rock bottom. I'm not saying that Putin single-handedly restored it to international prominence, but I'm afraid it did," he said at the time. .

So far, none of these positions had prevented him from conducting a concert.

But his refusal to disavow the military aggression unleashed in Ukraine by Putin changed the situation.

Serial cancellations

On Monday, the Philharmonie de Paris and the prestigious Swiss festival in Lucerne announced that it had canceled several dates of its concerts as a sign of "solidarity" with "the Ukrainian people".

In Switzerland, the Verbier Festival, then the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, the world's largest live performance event, asked for and accepted the resignation of Mr. Gergiev from the post of musical director of their orchestra.

On Friday, the famous New York hall Carnegie Hall had dismissed the Russian conductor from a series of performances.

On Sunday, it was his German artistic agent, Marcus Felsner, who decided to stop representing Gergiev.

Hailing "one of the greatest conductors of all time", he explained on Facebook that he could no longer defend the interests of his client "who will not want, or will not be able, to publicly put an end to his long-term support date to a regime that has committed such crimes".

Supporters of the Russian protest group Pussy Riot demonstrate at the Auditori de Barcelona in Spain where Russian conductor Valery Gergiev performs to denounce his support for Vladimir Putin, February 1, 2022 Pau BARRENA AFP

Charismatic, the Russian maestro with a three-day beard had also been the subject of strong criticism for his hyperactivity - up to 275 concerts a year - sometimes implying a lack of rigor.

After eight years at the head of the London Symphony Orchestra, he was notably singled out by the English daily The Guardian for his "routine and sometimes ill-prepared" concerts.

The same reproaches had been addressed to him in Munich later.

© 2022 AFP