The Ukrainian Government is calling for the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma to stop hiring Anna Netrebko.

The head of the Ukrainian President’s Office Andrii Yermak took to Telegram to demand that the Rome Opera not hire the soprano for her alleged past support of the Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin.

Yermak said, “Pretty strange news. Russian soprano Anna Netrebko will return to the stage of the Rome Opera. This is the cultural figure who in 2012 was Putin’s trusted face in the elections, in 2014 she came to Donetsk and held the flag of ‘novorisiia.’ She was a servant of the regime. And suddenly she returns to the European stage.”

He added, “Netrebko should not perform in Europe. The only place for her and others like her now is the opera in Moscow.”

Yermak also added that Russian performers not be given a stage in Western countries. He said, “It is now very important that Russian actors do not have the opportunity to make money in the civilized world and continue to bring Russian culture to Europe and the West, while Russia kills our people, kidnaps children and kills them with missiles.”

Yermak’s comments come one month after the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma announced its 2024-25 season in which it announced that Netrebko would appear in “Tosca.” The theater is also employing numerous Russian singers next season, including Lidia Fridman, Igor Golovatenko, Maria Kataeva, and Ekaterina Bakanova.

Netrebko has already condemned the war in Ukraine on three occasions and has not returned to Russia since the start of the war.

However, she was sanctioned in Ukraine. Ukrainian artists and cultural institutions have also issued worldwide calls to action, urging worldwide institutions to suspend cooperation with Russian artists for as long as the war continues.