La Scala responds to call to ‘cancel’ Russian composers

The opera house says that works of culture should not suffer because of the Ukraine conflict.

Milan’s famed La Scala theater has insisted that Russian culture should not be “penalized” because of the military operation against Ukraine.

Management defended its decision to include the works of Russian composers in its newest program after a Ukrainian consul called them instruments of Moscow’s propaganda campaign.

According to Italian news agency ANSA, Andrey Kartysh, Ukraine’s consul general in Milan, sent a letter to La Scala CEO Dominique Meyer, as well as Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala and the head of the Lombardy region, Attilio Fontana, asking to “review” its program for the 2022-2023 season in order to avoid “potential elements of propaganda.”

The diplomat cited the “great disappointment and regret” of the Ukrainian community in Italy. “Culture is being used by the Russian Federation to lend weight to its assertions of greatness and power,” he wrote, arguing that “the pandering to its propaganda can only fuel the image of the regime [in Moscow] and, by extension, its evil ambitions and countless crimes.”

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