Protests by Ukrainian activists against the Russian Putinist opera singer Anna Netrebko began in 2023. The year before, the Metropolitan Opera in New York had refused to work with her because she refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Instead, Ukrainian opera legend Lyudmyla Monastyrska began performing. One of those who opposed the Ukrainian protests was conductor Michael Güttler, Suspilne Kultura reports, citing one of the leaders of the protests, Kateryna Plaksiy.
According to her, the conductor had a long history of relations with Russia, having worked at the Mariinsky Theatre for 13 years and having been an assistant to Valeriy Gergiyev, the Kremlin’s cultural propagandist, also known as Putin’s conductor. After the first No Netrebko action by Ukrainian activists, Michael Güttler and his wife Alesya Shapovalova (a Russian woman and the head of the Russian cultural centre in Germany, Samovar) filed civil lawsuits against the movement’s participants. The main arguments were allegedly statements made on social media and in interviews.
Although the court initially upheld the conductor’s claim, the Ukrainians disagreed and, after legal advice, appealed the decision. The second ruling was in favour of the activists. Güttler was banned from spreading false statements under the threat of fines.
“This may be the first time in Germany that Ukrainian activists have managed to defend their honour and dignity in court and obtain a ban on false statements by a German, a well-known and wealthy German, who openly, including in the German press, advocates Putinist Netrebko, ‘great Russian culture’, and spreads Russian propaganda,” commented Kateryna Plaksiy.
According to the activist, Güttler does not stop and is trying to file similar lawsuits, but in a different legal form. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian movement held another action on 15 May against Netrebko’s performance at the Berlin Opera. And in June, they are preparing to protest against her concert in Regensburg.