Netrebko

Opera got away with using Gounod to feature sensation-making young singers: no less than Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón in 2005, Vittorio Grigolo with Nino Machaidze six years later.

Meyer’s last gala premiere will be Verdi’s “The Force of Destiny,’’ starring Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann on Dec. 7.

Some stars, including Gergiev, who also leads the Bolshoi, and the soprano Anna Netrebko, have been shunned in the West because of their ties to Mr. Putin.

The cast includes a pair of La Scala premiere veterans: Russian soprano Anna Netrebko as Elisabeth of Valois and Italian tenor Francesco Meli in the title role.

As the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, who sang that role at the State Opera on Friday, crossed from left to right, the scene was a hallucinatory version of real life: a powerful woman attempting to make her way through a world aflame with war.