Why are elite Russian musicians backing Putin?

A world away from the stupendous horror perpetrated by Russian forces in Bucha and Kramatorsk, a parallel conflict is being grittily fought in quite other theatres.

La Scala and The Metropolitan Opera are two of them.

Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Putin’s most favoured conductor, is at the heart of the crossfire. His overseas contracts went up in smoke at the start of the invasion after he failed to recant his long-standing admiration for the Russian president.

On one side of the lines are those who would support him, and who charge that Gergiev’s detractors are ‘cancelling’ Russian culture wholesale. Chief among such is Putin himself: ‘The names of Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff are being removed from playbills! Russian writers and their books are being banned!’ he told the viewers of Russian state television.

He’s far from alone in his trepidation. Another vocal supporter of Gergiev, though much less well-known, is Dasha, a woman I worked with at the BBC in Moscow.