Anna Netrebko Stands with Vladimir Putin

This morning a report appeared on the BBC News Web site stating that Russian soprano Anna Netrebko has donated one million doubles as a gift to the Donetsk opera and ballet theater. This appears to endorse those rebels who believe that Donetsk should be Russian rather than Ukrainian. It is unclear how much she knows about conditions in any part of the Ukraine; but she is far from the only high-profile figure to provide such tacit endorsement of Vladimir Putin's current policy regard that part of the world. In the domain of serious music, she is joined by both conductor Valery Gergiev and violist Yuri Bashmet.