Romania’s PM reacts after scandal at the Bucharest Opera: We need valuable artists and performances

Romania’s Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos and culture minister Vlad Alexandrescu promised that they would try to find solutions to solve the conflict at the Bucharest National Opera so that Danish choreographer Johan Kobborg and famous Romanian ballerina Alina Cojocaru would continue to perform on the Romanian stage. “I think that the Bucharest National Opera needs valuable artists and performances. I’m sure that we can respect our value, and that we also can respect a remarkable artist or artistic act whether they come from Romania or from abroad,” Ciolos wrote on his Facebook page, in answer to an open letter he received from Alina Cojocaru. “The Ministry of Culture wants to continue the collaboration with Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg, who have brought a remarkable international artistic contribution,” culture minister Alexandrescu also wrote on Facebook. Johan Kobborg resigned on Tuesday, April 12, from the position of artistic director of the Bucharest National Opera’s ballet company after a conflict with the institution’s new management. Alina Cojocaru, one of the world’s most appreciated ballet dancers, who has been performing on the Opera’s stage as a guest-ballerina in Kobborg’s productions, announced that she would no longer perform under the new management. Some of the ballet company’s members joined her protest and announced they would leave the company and the Opera had to cancel the International Dance Gala, on April 28. The gala should have featured pieces from famous ballet performances staged by the National Opera throughout the years as well as a world premiere. Several other ballet productions, which have premiered on the National Opera’s stage since December 2013, when Johan Kobborg took on as the ballet’s artistic director, also risk being cancelled. Some of the Opera’s employees had a negative reaction to the ballet dancer’s protest. They started throwing accusations at Kobborg and the foreign dancers he has brought into the company claiming that they were paid several times better than the Romanian dancers. They even organized a counter-protest to the one held on Tuesday by Alina Cojocaru and several members of the ballet company. The protest took a xenophobic turn when the counter-protesters started booing the dancers, shouting: “out with the foreigners!” After these events, Alina Cojocaru had a meeting with Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos and then she wrote an open letter to him explaining why she and her fiancé, Johan Kobborg, could no longer perform in Romania. “Unfortunately, I’ve realized that this country of ours is not ready for what I and Johan have been offering them in these two years and wanted to continue. We knew that it would be hard, but we hoped that inspiring courage, creativity, passion, and honesty, in the hearts of young ballet dancers and of the country’s young talents who have decided to return to the country since Johan took over, would be a start for a new generation of artists in Romania. We hoped we could break from the circle of malice and destruction our country was in. At least a little change to be felt by the next generations. But it seems that we were wrong,” Alina Cojocaru wrote to Ciolos. To which Ciolos replied: “Performance must be appreciated wherever it comes from. We are proud when Romanian performers are recognized abroad and that’s why we respect any performance in our country, by any artist. It’s our duty as administrators to make these things possible. But beyond any differences of opinion that may occur, the xenophobic speech has no place if Romania wants to be open to the world.” The culture minister and the Bucharest National Opera’s management have also distanced themselves from the nationalist points of view expressed by some of the institution’s employees in the past days.