A demonstration group gathered outside London's Royal Opera House (ROH) on September 7, 2025, to protest a planned appearance by the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko in the 2025/26 season.

The ROH has invited Netrebko to sing the title role in Tosca (September-October) and the lead role in Turandot (December-February), and she has also been offered a solo recital on the Royal Opera House's main stage with pianist Pavel Nebolsin.

Protester Thomas Brayford posted an image of the demonstration and summarized the group's views.

 

 

The ROH's decision to program Netrebko has proved controversial: recently, some British Members of Parliament, as well as Sergiy Kyslytsya (first deputy foreign minister of Ukraine), Andriy Kurkov (author, PEN Ukraine), and Helen Clark (former prime minister of New Zealand), signed an open letter urging the ROH to rescind its invitation.

Of late, the Royal Ballet and Opera have also received public critique for their treatment of the issues surrounding conflict in Israel-Palestine. The protest follows a recent incident in which RBO Director of Opera Oliver Mears was filmed attempting to snatch a Palestinian flag displayed by cast member Daniel Perry during the curtain call for a performance of Verdi's Il trovatore.

The RBO also recently pulled out of its planned 2026 production run of Tosca at the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv, after almost 200 of the company's staff members signed an open letter that was critical of its stance on Gaza.

"Will we allow Putin to use art as a curtain to hide his crimes?" wrote Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK. "Will we allow his closest allies to stand on the world's stages as if nothing has happened?"

"Netrebko has become one of the key symbols of this war. She was, and remains, a cultural instrument legitimizing killings in Ukraine. Her voice was meant to show that Russia is civilized, modern, worthy of applause. At the same time, that voice silenced the bombings of Grozny, Aleppo, Mariupol, Chernihiv, Kyiv."