Conductor Valery Gerviev is Shame for Discrimination Vs. Gays

 

Pro-Kremlin star conductor Valery Gergiev (pictured) who has also performed in Hong Kong, denied discriminating against gays after several of his concerts were disrupted by protestors accusing him of backing controversial new anti-gay legislation in Russia. Gergiev, artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg and also chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), issued a statement denying he had ever supported anti-gay laws. The conductor is a strong public backer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whose support he opened a brand new opera house for the Mariinsky in Saint Petersburg earlier this year, AFP reports. Putin in June signed a law banning the dissemination of gay propaganda to minors in Russia, which activists have denounced as being brazenly homophobic and which prompted calls for a boycott of the February 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. “I have said before that I do not discriminate against anyone, gay or otherwise, and never have done, and as head of the Mariinsky Theatre this is our policy,'' Gergiev said in a highly unusual statement on his official Facebook page. “It is wrong to suggest that I have ever supported anti-gay legislation and in all my work I have upheld equal rights for all people,'' he said, without specifically referring to the new Russian law. Gergiev reportedly backed the law in an interview with a Dutch newspaper in September. He was targeted earlier in the autumn season during appearances in the United States by gay rights activists who at one point heckled him while conducting. His most recent concert with the LSO in London was overshadowed by a stunt by gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell who strode onto the stage in a tuxedo to denounce the conductor's stance on gay rights. But Gergiev said: “I am an artist and have for over three decades worked with tens of thousands of people in dozens of countries from all walks of life and many of them are indeed my friends.'' Tatchell is planning a new protest to picket Gergiev ahead of his next concert in London tonight. “Gergiev endorses Putin, despite this shameful repression. That's why we need to protest,'' Tatchell said in a statement. The musician is widely respected for restoring the artistic qualities of the Mariinsky Theater over the last years but critics accuse him of blind loyalty to the Kremlin and megalomania. (The Standard-Hong Kong)