The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra will leave for Russia in November, part of its world tour celebrating the venerable ensemble's 125th anniversary. And one member of the orchestra, viola player Vincent Peters, is urging his band to make a statement about the Russian government's anti-LGBTQ policies.
Even better, the Dutch gay rights organization C.O.C. is suggesting that the Concertgebouw play Tchaikovsky on its Russian program--instead of Mahler's Symphony No. 2.
In post-Soviet Russia, even President Vladimir Putin acknowledges that Tchaikovsky was gay.
However, after a meeting with LGBTQ leaders in The Hague, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra has decided that--unlike pushing progressive technology--it will make no statements on the subject of gay rights while on tour.
New Russian legislation, signed into law by Putin earlier this year, effectively outlaws "homosexual propaganda."
The Concertgebouw's glibness is reminiscent of the Metropolitan Opera's decision earlier this season to refrain from making any political statement.
The Met was urged, via petition, to publicly dedicate its opening night performance of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin to the cause of Russian gay rights. In response to the protests that erupted when the Met did no such thing, general manager Peter Gelb stated, "...as an arts institution, the Met is not the appropriate vehicle for waging nightly battles against the social injustices of the world."
Decisions like these are always difficult for arts organizations. As our own James Inverne noted in a recent column here, "This is all part of a large, profound question--more than one. What is the role of artists in society? Are the arts, in fact, political? There are no proscribed answers."
Yes, these are questions that all arts organizations must wrestle with. Some artists, of course, willingly embrace political causes. Other organizations, meanwhile, prefer to focus on art for art's sake.
But for those individuals and institutions who would remain steadfastly apolitical, there may come a time when human rights abuses are too great not to speak out.
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