Judge dismisses soprano Anna Netrebko’s defamation suit against Met Opera

13 September 2026facebook iconA US district judge has dismissed soprano Anna Netrebko’s suit against the Metropolitan Opera for defamation of character. The ruling, issued earlier this month by Judge Annalisa Torres, found that Netrebko had not proved that Met managing director Peter Gelb had “acted with actual malice when he made the alleged defamatory statements.” The soprano is continuing her suit for gender discrimination against the Met, citing the fact that Russian male singers, including bass Ildar Abdrazakov, performed at the Met after Netrebko’s appearances were cancelled.

Of course there is no doubt that Gelb, pursuing a crusade against the Russian soprano ever since the war in Ukraine started more than four and a half years ago, attacked Netrebko with the aim of harming her career. As the WSWS has previously explained, Gelb

has been in the forefront of the campaign of defamation and blacklisting of Netrebko. His vendetta against the soprano is of course connected to the bipartisan US support for the proxy war in Ukraine, which began after years of provocations, especially the 2014 coup that overthrew the elected pro-Moscow government in Kiev.

Gelb’s particular venom against Netrebko, however, is also linked to the political activity and musical career of his wife. Keri-Lynn Wilson is a Ukrainian-Canadian conductor who formed a new symphonic ensemble immediately after the 2022 invasion, calling it the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra. The performances of this orchestra have at least as much political as musical content. The Orchestra explains, on its website, that it is ‘a collaboration between the Metropolitan Opera, the Polish National Opera and the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture.’ The ensemble even boasts that its ‘honorary patron’ is ‘Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska.’ Through his wife, Mr. Gelb has turned the Metropolitan Opera into a virtual subsidiary of the Ukrainian regime and the proxy war against Russia launched after Putin’s reactionary invasion in February 2022.

Even though Netrebko had already issued two statements criticizing the invasion, Gelb issued his ultimatum demanding that the soprano denounce Putin by name. In other words, the Met was requiring that its biggest star choose sides in the war rather than simply denouncing it, and that she join in the chorus of support for Ukraine’s alliance with imperialism. One of the preeminent figures in the opera world was being forced to sacrifice either her US career or her self-respect.

The result, more than four years later, is clear. The Met is the largest opera house in the world, and one of the most prominent. With Gelb effectively leading the way, Netrebko has been effectively blacklisted in Chicago, San Francisco and everywhere else in the US, with the exception of one small performance in Florida about 18 months ago.

Netrebko has not been “cancelled” in the rest of the world, however. Although she has also been excluded in Russia, she is singing to almost universal critical and popular praise, filling opera houses to capacity throughout the rest of Europe. Small protests by supporters of the Ukrainian regime outside a few performances have been completely rejected or ignored by audiences. In the coming few months, Netrebko will be singing the title role in Puccini’s Turandot in Vienna, the role of Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto at La Scala in Milan, and Abigaille in Verdi’s Nabucco in Berlin. In addition, there is a concert tour and appearances, including in Verdi’s Requiem.

The soprano made her debut 32 years ago. She has been a household name in the world of opera for close to a quarter of a century. At 54, her career has been noted for its vocal longevity, as she has transitioned from the famous lyric and coloratura roles—including Violetta in La Traviata, Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and the title roles in Aida and Tosca—into heavier and more dramatic parts like Lady Macbeth and Turandot.

The district court ruling is political, but also in some respects a Pyrrhic one as well. Gelb has already been forced by an arbitrator’s decision to shell out $200,000 for breaking contractual agreements for a total of 13 scheduled appearances by Netrebko at the Met. This case has additionally added to the Met’s financial crisis, so deep that the company was forced to dip heavily into its endowment to meet current costs. The company is mounting 17 separate productions in the coming season, down from as high as 25 before the pandemic. It also announced significant layoffs and revealed that the famous Marc Chagall murals in the opera house’s lobby were up for sale, with the stipulation that they could not be moved.

Can you explain who Bogdan Syrotiuk is and what the ICFI's political program is that led him to write those articles calling for worker unity?How does the blacklisting of Russian artists like Netrebko in the US and parts of Europe compare historically to earlier campaigns of political censorship during wartime?Ask more questions at SocialismAI.comEven as he was prattling on about Ukrainian “democracy,” Gelb also signed a memorandum of understanding for a multi-year $200 million performance residency that would have had the Met performing for three weeks each winter in Saudi Arabia, under the notorious dictatorship of de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman. To add to Gelb’s humiliation, the Saudis, citing fiscal constraints in light of its own wars, pulled out of this tentative deal last April.

The Met has not only been forced to pay Netrebko $200,000 for its breach of contract, it has also undoubtedly spent as much or more than this sum in its own legal costs. Most important, the opera company has lost its biggest draw at the box office at the peak of her career.

The continued success of Netrebko in Europe is politically significant. Opera houses in Europe, in contrast to their counterparts in the US, have refused to ostracize the soprano. This is not due in any way to official policy; the various European bourgeois governments are as determined as Washington, if not more so, to step up the war drive against Moscow. The reason for the Russian soprano’s continued success in Europe is clearly related to the experiences of two bloody world wars fought out largely on that continent, and the especially strong antiwar feelings among the descendants of earlier victims of imperialism.

Nonetheless, the German authorities in particular have done their best to foment anti-Russian hysteria and smear various artists, including famed conductor Valery Gergiev. The Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in Finland announced it would exclude Russian participants. Various European museums have cancelled exhibitions featuring Russian art works. Works by Tchaikovsky have been targeted, along with Russian literary classics.

The proxy war in Ukraine is one front in the emerging third world war. Ukraine and other wars reflect the unprecedented depth of the crisis of imperialism. That crisis lies behind the campaign against Netrebko. It also finds expression in a very different and far more consequential attack on democratic rights: the sentencing of Ukrainian Trotskyist Bogdan Syrotiuk to 15 years in prison for the “crime” of writing six articles calling for the unity of Russian and Ukrainian workers against the fratricidal war, for the World Socialist Web Site.

Resistance to imperialist war as well as inequality and the threat of fascism is growing. There is a connection between the outpouring of support for Bogdan—most recently the public statement by La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), the second largest political party in France, calling for Bogdan’s freedom—and the refusal of opera professionals and opera listeners alike to go along with Netrebko’s blacklisting.