As far as Gergiev's reputation is concerned, I rather view him as one of
those quintessentially Russian shaman-showmen - perhaps the Rasputin of
the musical world, half deluded priest, half canny calculator.

Of course, he was bound to be 'rumbled' in time:  but some of the results
he has accidentally provoked along the way have been remarkable indeed.

A friend of mine who was involved in one of his Dutch opera productions a
year or two ago said that the fact he had no stick technique at all worked
- in a perverse way - to the advantage of the music, because it forced the
singers and orchestral players to listen ultra-hard to one another simply
in order to survive, and made the results unusually involving!

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!"