When the International May Festival opens in Wiesbaden in three months, the Lord Mayor of the state capital, Gert-Uwe Mende (SPD), will also do the honors.

As he announced in an interview with the FAS, he wants to use this opportunity to address the public conflict about the planned performances by the Russian opera singer Anna Netrebko.

Eva Maria Magel

Senior cultural editor of the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Ewald Hetrodt

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung in Wiesbaden.

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It began when Uwe Eric Laufenberg, the belligerent director of the State Theater, reported to the Wiesbaden magistrate on January 10th in a confidential meeting about the engagement of the star soprano for a whopping 100,000 euros about six months earlier.

Local politicians were impressed.

They ignored the facts that everyone knew.

Netrebko's strong proximity to the Kremlin had made her persona non grata in major opera houses.

The fact that she then distanced herself from Putin also caused her to fall out of favor in Moscow, but was often seen in the West as a purely tactically motivated maneuver with which she wanted to win back the favor of her supporters and business partners.

On January 7, the Ukrainian government published a list of sanctions that included Netrebko among 119 Russian artists and creatives.

The State Chancellery had only one choice

What the Wiesbaden magistrate had missed was taken very seriously by the Hessian state government.

While the city, as a co-organiser, shoulders most of the costs of the festival, the prime minister traditionally takes over the patronage of the May Festival.

The state gives a few receptions, the Ministry of Science and Art usually supports one production of the May Festival with a grant of up to 75,000 euros and lets you know: Since the city has not yet submitted an application for the May Festival 2023, it is unclear which program item that will be this year, the ministry announced.

In any case, they "have no intention of supporting the opera performances with Ms. Netrebko".

The director must be persuaded to unload the opera singer again, according to the State Chancellery.

The magistrate adopted this point of view.

At its meeting on January 17, it passed a corresponding resolution that reversed the agreement expressed a week earlier.

But the attempt to persuade Laufenberg to give in failed.

The director, who has been in dispute with the state government for a long time, was once again outraged and sent letters, copies of which were scattered.

The State Chancellery had only one choice.

To avoid a diplomatic affront to Ukraine, she withdrew from the festival for 2023.

This was communicated to the public in a joint statement by the state and city, in which Mende and his head of culture, Axel Imholz (SPD), emphasized that they respected the director's artistic freedom, but did not want to raise any doubts about solidarity with Ukraine.

A clear direction

That is why the magistrate will deal with the matter again, according to the two social democrats.

They also gave a clear direction for this.

The city's waiver of representative events at the May Festival is "consistent and in fact the right signal," the press release said.