Gelb’s comments come on the heels of receiving multiple cease-and-desist letters from Netrebko’s lawyers. He is also involved in a lawsuit with the soprano, where he is being sued for gender discrimination and national origin discrimination. It also comes as multiple singers who the Metropolitan Opera is engaging have been performing in Russian state-funded theaters during the war in Ukraine. This season, Lawrence Brownlee will be opening the Zaryadye Hall days after Putin supporter Valery Gergiev takes the stage, and then Elena Stikhina will sing “The Queen of Spades” a few months later. When the war broke out, the Zaryadye Hall released a statement in support of the war and said, “The decision taken by the President of Russia Vladimir Putin to carry out peacekeeping functions in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics is the restoration of justice, and as a result the demilitarization and denazification of the DPR and the LPR in accordance with the Minsk Agreements.”

Earlier this month, it was revealed through court documents that Gelb disregarded Netrebko’s three anti-war statements regardless of her fear of Putin. He said, “She should be scared of the harm to her professional reputation instead of being scared of Putin.”