The cultural controversy erupted in a week when Italy was hosting heads of state from all over Europe to reaffirm their support for Ukraine and discuss how to rebuild the country once the war is over.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been a strong and consistent critic of Vladimir Putin from the start. But her culture ministry is one of the backers of Un’Estate da RE, which has invited Gergiev.
A senior MP from Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, Alfredo Antoniozzi, has described Gergiev as “simply a great artist”.
“If Russians have to pay for the mistakes of their president, then we are committing a kind of cultural genocide,” he argued.
Last month, Canada formally barred Gergiev from entry and declared it would freeze any assets.
But the European Union has shied away from formal sanctions against the conductor, who has avoided voicing open support for the war.
Gergiev has been a vocal supporter of Putin since the 1990s, later campaigning for his re-election and backing Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.
He was handed management of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre, in addition to the Mariinsky Theatre, taking over from a director who signed an open letter against Russia’s war.
Gergiev is a state employee, but in 2022 an investigation by Alexei Navalny’s team uncovered properties in several Italian cities that they say he never declared.
They also alleged he used donations to a charitable fund to pay for his own lavish lifestyle.
The activists argued that was Gergiev’s reward for his public loyalty to Putin.
The BBC has so far been unable to reach the conductor for comment.
A spokeswoman for the European Commission, Eva Hrncirova, has clarified that the Un’Estate da RE festival is not receiving EU cash: it is financed by Italy’s own “cohesion funds”.
But she added that the commission urged European stages not to give space “to artists who support the war of aggression in Ukraine”.
In Campania, the artistic director who crafted this year’s festival programme declined to comment. A spokesman was confident Gergiev’s performance would go ahead, though – despite the controversy.
“Yes,” he assured the BBC. “For sure.”
Additional reporting from Rome by Davide Ghiglione.