Ildar Abdrazakov has been hired to return to Italy after endorsing Putin.

The bass has been announced to open the 2026 Teatro Filarmonico season in the title role of “Don Giovanni.”

This will mark his return to the Italian stage after 2023, when he was present at the Ravenna Festival. He was expected to perform at the Teatro San Carlo in 2025 in productions of “Attila” and “Don Carlo” but were ultimately canceled due to uproar.

Abrazaov has been steadily performing in Russia since the war and has performed alongside Riccardo Muti in concerts in Japan.

Abdrazakov has been an open supporter of Putin since the beginning of the war, having endorsed him in 2023. He was later named a Member of Russia’s Presidential Council, received the Russian State Prize, and performed at the BRIC summit. He is also the General Director of the Sevastopol State Opera and Ballet Theater, which is a Kremlin-ordered cultural complex that was constructed on the southern tip of the peninsula. It is located alongside one of the Soviet Union’s largest war monuments and is a symbol of Russia’s defiance of punitive measures imposed following its 2014 seizure of the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula and ongoing involvement in the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine.

This is Italy’s second attempt at hiring a Putin supporter following its attempt to hire Valery Gergiev for a concert that was ultimately canceled this past.

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