Peter Gelb is claiming that Anna Netrebko had contact with the Kremlin back in 2022 before getting fired from the Metropolitan Opera.

While on his trip to Ukraine, the Met’s General Manager was interviewed by the Ukrainian Press and was asked about the pending lawsuit against the Met and himself. He said he would not compromise or settle and said, “an important point in the Netrebko case — I gave her the opportunity to publicly distance herself from Putin. She said she couldn’t.”

He went on to state, “I believe she had certain discussions with the Kremlin. And, as I see it, she came back to me and said: ‘I stand with my country.’ And that was when I fired her. Her statement a month later claiming she was against the war — in my opinion, was insincere. It appeared only because I terminated her. Legally, I consider it to be an insincere statement. I don’t believe she truly meant it.”

Since the war began, Netrebko released three statements each time opposing the war with the third statement distancing herself from Putin and clarifying that she had only met with the Russian dictator a handful of times.

Netrebko later filed a lawsuit for defamation, breach of contract, and national origin and gender discrimination claims. However, only the gender defamation claim moved forward (although a motion for reconsideration is still pending). In the ruling, Judge Annalisa Torres said, “For example, she alleges that the male opera singer Ildar Abdrazakov performed at political events, ‘including at least one event at which Putin … spoke about the war in Ukraine,’ and that Abdrazakov organized a Kremlin-backed music festival.

She added, “She further states that male opera singer Evgeny Nikitin was featured at a Victory Day event involving Putin, and that Igor Golovatenko and Alexey Markov have performed at state-sponsored venues since the invasion of Ukraine.”

Torres went on to state, “Netrebko claims she was specifically targeted as a woman because the Met wanted to make ‘an example out of its ‘reigning prima donna’” to most visibly show its commitment to Ukraine. She also noted that the Met maintained its relationship with the aforementioned male counterparts. Torres wrote, “Here, Netrebko’s claim of gender discrimination crosses the line from merely possible to plausible.”

Since the war began, Netrebko has not traveled or performed in Russia and was deemed a persona non grata by multiple Russian politicians after condemning the war. According to Amnesty International, a week into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia introduced war censorship laws to criticize the invasion a grave offence.

In 2022 after Gelb made comments regarding the soprano, her manager, Miguel Esteban, noted that the Met Opera’s Lawyers would cease and desist from making defamatory statements. He said, “Peter Gelb continues his defamatory remarks against Anna Netrebko, despite assurances from the Metropolitan Opera’s outside counsel, Howard Z. Robbins at the law firm Proskauer Rose, that his client would cease and desist. On 30 March 2022, Anna Netrebko made a statement denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and characterizing her arm’s-length relationship with Putin; her subsequent interviews in Le Monde and Die Zeit clarified any residual misunderstandings that may have suggested otherwise. Valery Gergiev is a conductor, not a politician. Peter Gelb has not provided any material evidence to contradict Anna Netrebko’s statements.”

Netrebko recently completed a sold-out run of “The Queen of Spades” at the Wiener Staatsoper and next returns to the Arena di Verona for a new production of “Nabucco.”