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 at Carnegie Hall on Friday night.
The 68-year-old Russian conductor is music director of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, the White Nights Festival there and is chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic. He received a Hero of Labor of the Russian Federation prize that Putin revived in 2013 and has often voiced support of Putin, who has been widely condemned for ordering an invasion of Ukraine that began Thursday.
