Email
Protesters are to picket a concert by Valery Gergiev on Thursday over the anti-gay laws introduced in Russia during the summer and the conductor's close ties to President Vladimir Putin.
The demonstration is scheduled to take place outside the Barbican, where Gergiev will lead the London Symphony Orchestra in a performance of The Damnation of Faust by Berlioz – about a scholar who gets too close to the devil.
The picket follows small disruptions of concerts in New York and an intervention by the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell last Thursday evening when, dressed in black tie, he strode on to a concert stage to condemn Gergiev as "a friend, ally and supporter of the Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin, whose regime is arresting peaceful protesters and opposition leaders".
Gergiev is one of the world's leading conductors and a supporter of Putin. He has been artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg for more than 25 years and principal conductor of the LSO since 2007.
He was one of more than 500 names from the Russian "cultural elite" who lent their support to Putin's presidential campaign, and he also appeared in a television advert. When he was asked his views on Pussy Riot Gergiev suggested they were out to make money.
As Putin and Russia continue to face fierce condemnation over anti-gay laws introduced in the summer, protesters are now looking to those who have such links. "This protest takes place on the anniversary of the 1917 Russian revolution," said Tatchell. "Some people argue that Russia needs a new, non-violent democratic revolution."
The campaigner said that at the very least Gergiev should remain silent about his support for Putin. "A more principled stand would be for him to make a general statement in support of democracy and human rights for all Russian citizens – including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people."
For some, support for Putin means support, tacit or otherwise, for his regime's anti-gay laws. The influential classical music writer Alex Ross, author of The Rest is Noise, wrote in the New Yorker last week: "No one should be surprised that gay people, for whom concert halls and opera houses have long been safe havens, are turning away from Gergiev and other pro-Putin musicians."
There have been small protests at the Carnegie Hall and at the Met in New York. The first protest in the UK was Tatchell's last Thursday, after which he was led off stage by the Barbican's security.
Tatchell said he would rather people did not go to a Gergiev concert but if they did he called on them to not applaud, to remain silent, when Gergiev came to the stage.
Gergiev has not responded at any length, but he gave an interview in Washington last month where he said: "I came here to work as a conductor, not as a person who will talk from early morning until late evening about other things than music. If you start to think every minute of people who are not necessarily involved in what you do, then your concentration is gone."
He said there was no discrimination at the Mariinsky, "but once you start to talk like this, you start to sound like someone who has to apologise. We have nothing to apologise for."
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the LSO said: "The relationship with Gergiev is about making great music, and the LSO is not involved in the views of any of our artists beyond that – making great music."
;