MOSCOW, July 21. /TASS/. Russian conductor Valery Gergiev believed that his concert scheduled for late July in Italy's Caserta was still on, he told TASS.
"That's news to me," the artist told the agency when asked about the concert’s cancellation.
TASS has sent inquiries to the press services of both the Mariinsky and Bolshoi Theaters for clarification.
Gergiev was set to take the stage on July 27 as part of the Un’Estate da Re (Summer of the King) festival with the Orchestra of the Teatro Verdi di Salerno, featuring soloists from the Mariinsky Theatre. The program included works by Giuseppe Verdi, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and Maurice Ravel. However, on July 21, the administration of the Royal Palace of Caserta announced the cancellation of the artist’s performance.
Earlier, European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno, from Italy’s opposition Democratic Party, had called for the event’s cancellation on her X social media account. She has previously also employed political pressure to cancel events involving Russian artists. Several pro-Ukrainian activists in Italy had also demanded the Caserta concert be canceled.