A productn of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Oneg has ed a ntroversy over Rsia’s anti-gay laws. But should art get volved polics? Jason Farago reports.
Contents:
THE MET’S STORM OVER GAY RIGHTS, POLICS AND PUT
* eugene onegin gay *
Earlier this month an terviewer asked Vladimir Put about Rsia’s dranian crackdown on the rights of gays and lbians, who have suffered vlent reprisals sce the passage of a discrimatory law this May. Put fend the law, but sisted he had no problems wh gay people – and chose a surprisg example to prove . “They say that Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a homosexual, ” the Rsian print said.
Opera pani plan their schl years advance, of urse, but now the Met fds self mountg a productn by a gay Rsian poser, featurg two noted Put supporters.
What rponsibili do the Met, as an arts anizatn, have to global gay rights and to the polil realm more generally?
EUGENE ONEG, A RSIAN GAY GENTLEMAN
In rejectg the onle petn, which garnered the signatur of several major figur at the Met, the hoe’s general manager Peter Gelb ployed a ‘some-of-my-bt-iends-are-gay’ fence to sistep any awkwardns.
It uld also vote the termissn featur of s highly popular HD broadsts or rad simulsts to a discsn of Rsia’s gay crackdown. Yet the Met has no artistic director who n lead the hoe towards polil engagement, and the Amerin mol of arts fundg – which leav stutns pennt on ultra-wealthy benefactors who may not relish a polil fight – means change is is, though, one salutary effect of the brouhaha around the Met’s Oneg: at least has lled public attentn to the homosexualy of Tchaikovsky, who like so many great Rsian cultural figur – Nikolai Gogol and Sergei Diaghilev e to md – would face arrt or worse ntemporary Mosw or St Petersburg.
In our Polilly Correct tim, is fashnable to discern homosexualy the mil texture of some classic posers and th reem them - there are, for example, totally unnvcg and ridiculo readgs of Schubert: he mt have been gay, bee his mic is non-aggrsive/perative/phallic, full of soft passag...