"THE NEW YORK TIMES"
— Back in August, the conductor Valery Gergiev took the stage in Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, and denounced its “monstrous bombardment” by Georgia.
Conductor Defends Russia, to Strains of Prokofiev.
MIAMI BEACH
Speaking both in Russian and, pointedly for the outside world, in English, he said Georgia had carried out a “huge act of aggression” and praised Russia as a savior. Then Mr. Gergiev — perhaps the world’s most famous Ossetian — led the Kirov Orchestra of St. Petersburg in what was billed as a memorial concert for the dead in the five-day battle between the two countries.
The event gave off a strong whiff of Kremlin propaganda and prompted a flurry of denunciations of Mr. Gergiev for supporting what many in the West saw as the bad actor in the war, Russia, which had intervened with overwhelming force after Georgia’s attack.
But three months later Mr. Gergiev remains unrepentant, even proud, of his role. In fact, he says he is vindicated by accounts by independent monitors in an article in The New York Times on Friday, suggesting that Georgia was not acting defensively and had launched an indiscriminate attack, although disputes over who was to blame remain.
“That’s what I’m saying for three months,” Mr. Gergiev said on Friday, in a follow-up conversation to a wide-ranging four-hour interview here on Thursday before a concert on the Kirov Orchestra’s American tour, which moves on to Avery Fisher Hall on Sunday and Monday. “I’m not celebrating this. Sooner or later the truth comes out.”
Mr. Gergiev harshly criticized Georgia and its president, Mikheil Saakashvili. He likened its attack to Pearl Harbor, in the sense that many knew it was coming but were shocked when it did, and dismissed his critics as armchair commentators.
“The one thing clear was that the regular army, Georgian, bombed the sleeping city,” Mr. Gergiev said. “Everybody recognizes it now. The Georgian president decided obviously to take them by force. If he decided to kill as many civilians as possible, it didn’t matter to him.”
Mr. Gergiev brushed aside reports of violence against Georgian villages by Ossetian militias and Russian soldiers. That violence, he said, was to be expected.
“It’s the beginning which was so important,” he said of the Georgian attack. “If you decide to open Pandora’s box, then don’t scream there are snakes there.”
Georgian officials continue to claim that they acted defensively, citing what they call evidence that Russians were poised to invade and were attacking Georgian villages.
Mr. Gergiev, as a famous, world-class conductor, has become one of Russia’s most potent cultural symbols. Like few other musicians, he wields extraordinary power in his country as head of Russia’s musical crown jewel, the Maryinsky Theater and its ballet, opera and symphony orchestra in St. Petersburg, which tour under the name Kirov.
His words and actions over South Ossetia show the extent to which he is willing to embroil himself in politics, even a murky dispute in which both sides, Russia and Georgia, are fighting a pitched public relations battle over who has the moral high ground. Few other conductors, Daniel Barenboim notably among them, have become so involved in the public realm.
Mr. Gergiev’s influence stems from the quality of his music-making but also from the loyalty he attracts from wealthy patrons who avidly follow his concerts, make contributions to his musical causes and put him up in their luxurious homes, like the estate he was staying in here. Mr. Gergiev is also the principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and widely in demand as a guest conductor.
For the interview on Thursday, which included an early preconcert dinner of giant stone crab legs, Mr. Gergiev had his trademark facial grizzle and the international artist’s uniform of all black: black jeans and black polo shirt. Famous for his frenetic travel schedule and frequent lateness, Mr. Gergiev was relaxed and expansive, never quite answering questions directly but veering into arabesques of discourse before being brought back to the point.
In New York he is presenting a Prokofiev survey in the Great Performers series at Lincoln Center. This Sunday’s program is ballet music, some of it lesser-known, followed by “Romeo and Juliet” on Monday. On Nov. 16, he and the Kirov will present a concert version of the opera “The Love for Three Oranges”; on Nov. 17, film music. Mr. Gergiev returns in March with the London Symphony Orchestra for programs of Prokofiev symphonies and concertos.
The idea behind the programming, he said, “is basically to complete the story which is half written.” The first half consisted of six Prokofiev operas Mr. Gergiev conducted in recent years at the Metropolitan Opera and with the Kirov Opera. Now it is time for New Yorkers to hear the lesser-known theater works and movie scores, he said. He will be back next season to lead a three-week Stravinsky festival with the New York Philharmonic. (This is possible only now that he is no longer officially principal guest conductor at the Met, which has a noncompete practice with the Philharmonic.)
“I, in a way, am destined to serve this tradition, because that was my tradition,” he said.
As part of his frenzied music-making, Mr. Gergiev has given concerts connected to the world’s events: raising funds for the victims of the Beslan tragedy in North Ossetia and of a Japanese earthquake and playing for peace in the Middle East.
But his performance in Tskhinvali on Aug. 21 left a sour taste in the mouths of some commentators.
The scene at the concert, witnesses said, was surreal. The area was awash in light amid the blacked-out city. Foreign reporters were hustled in for a quick glimpse. The smoke from burning Georgian villages, set upon by militiamen or possibly Russian troops, rose nearby. The concert was broadcast across Russia, and it evoked the suffering of Russians in World War II through a performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, completed during the epic German siege of Leningrad and steeped in nationalist sentiment.
“The message is clear,” the commentators Jens F. Laurson and George A. Pieler wrote on Forbes.com. “South Ossetians are innocent victims; the Russian army, their knight in shining armor; and Georgia’s president Mikheil Saakashvili has a metaphorical toothbrush mustache not unlike Adolf Hitler’s.” In response to similar indictments, the London Symphony issued a statement reaffirming its support of Mr. Gergiev.
“Morally, I am 100 percent sure I did the right thing,” he said. As for criticism from Westerners? “So what?” he added. “I’m Ossetian.”
Источник: Мария Плиева