Anti-war protesters in Italy denounce La Scala for staging Russian opera

Anti-war protesters demonstrated outside Milan's La Scala theatre on Wednesday before it opened its 2022-2023 opera season with a gala performance of the Russian work "Boris Godunov". Around 20 people waved the Ukrainian flag and held up placards denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin for the invasion of Ukraine in February.

Anti-war protesters demonstrated outside Milan's La Scala theatre on Wednesday before it opened its 2022-2023 opera season with a gala performance of the Russian work "Boris Godunov".

Around 20 people waved the Ukrainian flag and held up placards denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin for the invasion of Ukraine in February. "Russia must be isolated. We want to be free," said Tatiana Slyusarenko, who is originally from the Ukrainian town of Irpin and has been living in Italy since 2005. She is now hosting her cousin who escaped Irpin when the war broke out.

She questioned why La Scala had not changed its programme over the nine months since the war began. "Russian culture only when the war is over," read one of the placards.

La Scala artistic director Dominique Meyer last month defended its decision to stage the work, written by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in the 19th century, after protests from Ukrainian exile groups. Meyer said the programme was drawn up three years ago and it could not be viewed as pro-Putin propaganda.

Climate-change activists had earlier thrown paint at the entrance to the famed opera house ahead of the opening night, a highlight of the Italian cultural calendar. Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, President Sergio Mattarella and the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen were all expected to attend the performance.

The three-hour opera, based on a play by Russian writer Alexander Pushkin, recounts the story of Tsar Boris Godunov who went mad and died overwhelmed by guilt over the killing of a young rival for the throne in the late 16th century.

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