#cultural-controversy

#cultural-controversy

The opera is about individuals caught up in the brutal mundanity of the machinery and power of a repressive state. Playing Tosca is the great diva Anna Netrebko, now an Austrian citizen but born Russian, and described in The Times as a symbol of cultural propaganda for the Russian regime'. The singer has criticised the war without attacking Putin personally. For individual artists caught up in this geopolitical nightmare the pressures are clearly immense.

"On February 7, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts suffered a presidential coup. Donald Trump filled its board of trustees with loyalists and declared himself its 'amazing Chairman.'"

The seven accused, of whom only one was present in court, were found guilty of sending hate messages, and even a death threat, to Thomas Jolly.