“We demonstrate the free world’s ongoing cultural resolve to defend Ukraine’s liberty in the face of brutal oppression,” said Met general manager Peter Gelb during intermission.

Waters has expressed a sympathetic stance toward Russia in its war against Ukraine.

The fate of the 2023 contest had featured in talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Milan’s famed Teatro alla Scala has announced the celebration of next season’s gala premiere; the company’s 2022-23 calendar was set long before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Soprano Angel Blue, mezzo-sopranos Denyce Graves and Isabel Leonard, and jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant will also appear on the concert.

The prestigious orchestra says its 2022-23 season will perform works that address the tragedies of armed conflict, racial injustice, civil rights, and gender inequity.

When Oksana Stepanyuk, an award-winning soprano with the Japan Opera Foundation, performs “Melody,” composed by Myroslav Skoryk, a Ukrainian, her voice turns into a wail of mourning.

Anna Netrebko will sing the title role in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut.

Anna Netrebko also repeated her opposition to the war and said she is not “allied with any leader of Russia.”

Dancers who have fled Ukraine — and Russia — due to the war have found a new temporary home in Berlin’s top ballet company, which helps with practice space, housing, even shoes.

20-year-old Myroslava Sherbina said that, along with the clothes she wore, her violin was the one thing she took as she fled Ukraine.

One of Europe’s major opera houses is canceling a set of upcoming performances by Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet over the war the country is waging on Ukraine.

Peter Gelb, Met Opera’s general manager, says it’s “a great artistic loss for the Met.” But with what’s happening in Ukraine, Gelb said there was ”no way forward.”

Both the Munich Philharmonic and Rotterdam Philharmonic have cut ties with Valery Gergiev.

The festival says it made the change as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; Gergiev, a Russian conductor, is a friend and supporter of Vladimir Putin.

Gergiev’s former manager called him “the greatest conductor alive and an extraordinary human being with a profound sense of decency” but said that in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was “impossible” to defend his interests.

Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter has threatened to remove Valery Gergiev as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic unless Gergiev publicly says by Monday that he does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Carnegie Hall says Valery Gergiev, a conductor who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, will not lead the Vienna Philharmonic in a five-concert U.S. tour that starts Friday night in response “due to recent world events.”

Netrebko withdraws from a new production of Wagner’s Lohengrin at the Metropolitan Opera that is among seven new stagings the company announced for its 2022-23 season.