Novosibirsk, Russia's third largest city, doesn't often make the headlines. But on Sunday, Russian journalists together with their international colleagues found themselves outside the city's opera house to report on a demonstration for artistic freedom. In recent weeks, the scandal unfolding around a production of Wagner's opera Tannhäuser at the Novosibirsk Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet has drawn more and more attention.
Indeed, an unprecedented number of people (for Novosibirsk, at least) attended this meeting in defence of artistic freedom, and its final resolution included – for the first time in recent Russian history – the resignation of the Minister of Culture as one of its demands. This protest and the events surrounding the production of Wagner's opera says much about Russia's largest provincial city and the workings of Russia's cultural politics today.
Federal intervention
The brouhaha surrounding Tannhäuser exemplifies the rapidly developing alliance of the Russian Orthodox Church and state authorities, in their campaign against the freedom of self-expression.
