We are sincerely grateful to you for organizing the ‘Ballet for Peace’ at the Teatro San Carlo on April 4, 2022, where Ukrainian and Russian dancers affected by the war performed together to raise funds for Ukrainian charity. The performance featured the prima ballerina Olga Smirnova, one of Russia’s biggest dance stars who quit the Bolshoi Ballet company in Moscow after denouncing the invasion of Ukraine, and Anastasia Gurskaya, prima ballerina of the Kiev Opera, who fled her home country to escape the war. 

Recently we learned that in the upcoming season Ukrainian and Russian artists will again perform together in the joint production of the Teatro San Carlo and the Latvijas Nacionālā Opera un Balets. This time, Ukrainian bass-baritone Alexander Tsymbalyuk and Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov will be singing in Verdi’s opera Don Carlo.

Just like the Ukrainian ballerina Anastasia Gurskaya, the family of the Ukrainian singer Alexander Tsymbalyuk was forced to flee Ukraine to escape from Russian bombings of their hometown Odesa.

Unlike the Russian ballerina Olga Smirnova, who condemned the war and left Russia, Russian opera singer Ildar Abdrazakov is one of the top acolytes of the regime of Vladimir Putin, a war criminal currently under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. 

Several articles published by the Austrian-based music blog Opern•News reported on Mr. Abdrazakov’s performances in russia during the full scale invasion of Ukraine, and detailed his close professional and financial ties to Putin and how Mr. Abdrazakov was lavishly rewarded by Putin’s government for participating in the Kremlin’s extravagant propaganda shows. Opern•News also detailed Abdrazakov’s high-profile cancelation on Dec. 29, 2022, at the Teatro alla Scala. After performing at the opening of the season in front of the political, artistic and business elite of Italy and satisfying the interests of the Kremlin’s propaganda, Ildar Abdrazakov canceled his final performance of “Boris Godunov” in order to sing at an oligarch’s party in Moscow. 

These publications and protests by the group Arts Against Aggression forced the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Carnegie Hall to cancel the American tours of Ildar Abdrazakov.

In December 2023, music blog Opern•News released another article. Photos and video footage  published in the article revealed that opera singer Ildar Abdrazakov, conductor Valery Gergiev, viola player Yuri Bashmet, pianist Denis Matsuev, and saxophone player Igor Butman, among other prominent cultural figures, endorsed Vladimir Putin for reelection. Among these musicians, Ildar Abdrazakov was the only one whose performances have not yet been canceled in Europe. After the publication, even those opera theaters of Paris, Zurich, and Vienna that have turned a blind eye to pro-Putin artists, announced that they would terminate all collaboration with Mr. Abdrazakov. In early January 2024, we found out that his performance in Rome with Sir Antonio Pappano has been also cancelled. 

The only western city which still hosted Ildar Abdrazakov, shamefully, was Italian Ravenna. Our Open Letter to to the Ravenna Festival Foundation was supported by Italian political parties and associations, but – unfortunately, ignored by Major of Ravenna. So, Abdrazakov’s performance in Ravenna was the only case in which he was allowed to sing in Europe and US after his open support to Putin.

In June 2024, the music magazine Opera Wire reported that Vladimir Putin personally awarded Ildar Abdrazakov with the State Prize and that “the prize continues to confirm his allegiance to the Russian Federation after having been ousted from most Western theaters”.

Last year, the President of Italy Sergio Mattarella stated: “Dictatorships strive in every way to promote state art and culture, which are nothing more than fictional art and culture of the regime, rewarding the servility of official singers and punishing and suppressing genuine artists.”

Allowing Mr. Abdrazakov, a Kremlin proselytizer and a supporter of a war criminal, to sing on one of Italy’s most iconic stages is simply morally reprehensible. It is also immoral and inhumane to put on the same stage a Ukrainian singer, whose family fled from the war, with a Russian singer openly supporting this war and benefiting from it.

It is our hope that the Teatro San Carlo and the Latvijas Nacionālā Opera un Balets will follow the examples set by the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian State Opera, the Wiener Staatsoper, Paris Opera, Zurich Opera and will not endorse nor condone the regime of Vladimir Putin by offering its stage to his propaganda artist. 

Sincerely,

Arts Against Aggression

Check out these publications exposing the connections between opera bass Ildar Abdrazakov and the Putin regime, his participation in Kremlin propaganda during Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, and the cancellation of his performances in the West.