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E-book Global Elite Migrations : Agency and Networks of Migrant-Artists from the Former Soviet Bloc

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Penilaian

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In 2002, the world was astonished by the appearance of the new opera star Anna Netrebko at the Salzburg Opera Festival. She was young, incredibly talented and smashingly glamorous, almost akin to the legendary Maria Callas. She quickly became the face of the world new opera and also the face of the new Russia and of the post-Soviet space. Like a speeding rocket, she was granted, in 2006, the Austrian citizenship as the soloist of the Vienna State Opera. In a jiff, she became an Austrian citizen, without having undergone long bureaucratic procedures of naturalization in a country with the most restrictive citizenship schemes.Ten years later, I was watching the first release of the Big Opera annual contest show in Russia at the end of 2011 (under the patronage of the late Soviet opera diva Elena Obrazstova), where the best young singers from the former Soviet republics were competing for a variety of Russian television prizes but primarily for their future international fame and for their pass to the European and global opera net-works. In fact, the participants’ names were soon publicized in artistic programs of leading European opera houses.1Watching the Big Opera biannual shows, I was amazed to see the post-Soviet opera singers gaining their professional foothold overseas so rapidly every year.2 It never happened in the time of my childhood or adolescence, when I was growing up in the Soviet Union, or even during the perestroika or the ‘wild nineties’, respec-tively precipitating or following the Soviet collapse. Never before had I thought about the operatic profession as an asset for successful and privileged migration. As long as Netrebko was making her footprints all over the world, global mass media were publicizing curious stories about her life, describing her as the first post-Soviet ‘diva-converted Cinderella’, the first post-Soviet Maria Callas, the protegee of the great Valeriy Gergiev, the ‘singing Audrey Hepburn’, the most athletic and sexy opera star in the world, and most recently the ‘singing captain Benson’ because of her striking visual resemblance with Olivia Benson, the protagonist of the popular TV show Special Victims Unit. The overabundance of these images publicly attached to Netrebko first made me think about how glamorous her life and the lives of her compatriot colleagues who become migrants must be. ‘You must be kidding! I still cannot find a decent job’, noted Zina, my new friend and soon-to-be informant, when we first met in 2016, ‘I graduated from the conservatory seven years ago and I am not coming even close to professionals like Netrebko’.This banal yet disturbing encounter with an aspiring artist from Ukraine made me want to explore the lives and work of people like Zina and Netrebko, who have such different career- and migration- trajectories despite the same occupation and similar education. One resembles a star that is always shining the other is akin to a star that is beginning to faint. It was still the misfortunate other who had primarily captured my sociological imagination. The most amazing thing is that not many of us are familiar with problems that such migrant-artists may encounter overseas. Changing the global world, they often find themselves vulnerable when affected by its controversial forces.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

304.82 ISA g

Penerbit

Switzerland : ., 2024

Deskripsi Fisik

235 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9783031678332

Klasifikasi

304.82

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Emigration, Immigration

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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