Putin’s bass is in denial
OperaThe Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov, a vocal supporter of his president’s wars, has issued a statement on social media following his latest disappearance from a foreign stage:
Cancellation of Don Carlo and Attila in Napoli
It’s been quite some time I have not given my feedback regarding all the cancellations of my engagements in Europe and the U.S. Now is the time.
And my main message will go to the PUBLIC.
I’m sure all of my colleagues will agree with me that as artists we sing and play for you. I have never divided my audience by race, nationality, religion or political views. Theatre is a temple of its own.
New times have come. It’s the time when politicians enter the temple of art and music and set the best cast.
Regardless of any circumstances, I still hope to meet my audience worldwide and share my art with you soon.
Always yours,
Ildar Abdrazakov
In denial of what? It is the fact of life, like it or not, that art and music are politicized now. Maybe you haven’t heard but it has been announced that the monument to Tchaikovsky in Kamenka, Ukraine (the village where he worked on his Seasons and Swan Lake) will be demolished. You may regard Abdrazakov as “Putin’s bass” but was Tchaikovsky Putin’s composer?
No, he was just russian, and it seems 99% of russians nowdays support Putin, concluding that if Tchaikovsky lived in our days, he would also support Putin.
That said , look what violence and hatred is doing to people ; if Putin attacked Ukraine, and 99%of russians support Putin, the victims cannot love even o long dead russian, even if he was a very good composer.
That s what violence and hatred can cause.
You cannot start a war, then pretend you are the victim.
In our world, peace depends on Great Powers. If the Great Powers agree to divide their spheres of influence, there is peace. Then the Great Powers do not fight each other and small nations do as they are told. We’ve seen this after Yalta-Potsdam, and before that after Berlin Conference of 1884-5, after Congress of Paris in 1856, and after Congress of Vienna in 1815. If there is no agreement between the Great Powers, there is war. Thus, after Biden’s administration refused even to discuss Putin’s offer in Dec 2021, war became inevitable and you better pray that it stays within the limits of Ukraine. If there is rivalry between the Great Powers and a small nation tries to take sides, they may get hurt. Ukrainians tried to sell Russia’s safety for promised paradise in EU and NATO, so I have no sympathy for them.
This is how our world operates and I do not have another options or another world to offer you. Peace is not the default state here, you have to work hard to make peace. And if you do not, you get war.
Now, going back to Tchaikovsky, you may justify any stupidity by claiming victimhood, but in my view, this is just a primitive tribal way of thinking. Our tribe is good and their tribe and each and every one of them are bad, etc.
When Russia drops an aerial bomb on the Mariupol theater where women and children have taken refuge, destroys Ukrainian museums and libraries, when Ukrainian artists who took up arms to defend their country’s independence are constantly dying on the front, the Russian intellectual is most concerned about the fate of the Tchaikovsky monument.
And yet he does not notice that it was Ildar Abdrazakov who brought politics into the temple of art and desecrated it when he danced with the Russian Defense Minister, canceled a performance at Teatro alla Scala to perform for the wife of Putin’s oligarch, took part in a propaganda show on Red Square and became Putin’s confidant and advisor.
Russian intellectualism is a thing of the past. Topday it is fleeting, their best left.
Of course if he was alive. And Wagner would be pro-Palestine
At this point, it’s not his to decide nor deny. Artists cannot hide behind “art” as some sort of absolution. Art is a reflection of society and therefore, part of society.
Sad lack of conscience and character.
Oh yes, yes!! This is the smartest post I’ve ever read on Slipped Disc! So simple and so true!
ART IS NOT A TOTEM OF IMPUNITY
By converse reasoning, it reminds me of when the daughter of Riccardo Muti, Chiara Muti, joined dozens of artists to advocate for Gerard Depardieu, a man on trial for rape! https://slippedisc.com/2023/12/alagna-defends-gerard-depardieu/
Their reasoning could be construed that art is so pure and sublime that it transcends rape!
So, then Art transcends war crimes too!
Both Depardieu and Abdrazakov are friends and artistic partners of Muti 🙂 Muti loves to partner with both, he called Depardieu to Chicago twice, after the sexual assault incidents allegedly perpetuated by the French actor took place, and he called Abdrazakov to sing in Salzburg, Italy, Chicago, you name it! Depardieu was granted Russian citizenship by the same Putin war criminal who conferred on Muti the Russian Order of Friendship! It’s a good circle of friends!
But not everyone agreed with Alagna and Chiara Muti. Just a week after the publication of the “N’effacez pas Gérard Depardieu” (“Don’t erase Gérard Depardieu”) opinion piece in the French newspaper Le Figaro in support of actor Gérard Depardieu, who is under investigation for rape and sexual assault, more than 150 personalities reacted in a new opinion piece.
Published in newspaper Libération, it read: “In the name of art, certain voices are being raised to defend Gérard Depardieu, insinuating that his talent should shield him from criticism, and even excuse him for his intolerable behaviour. None of this will be in our name.”
The signatories also argued that “art is not a totem of impunity”.
Is it a totem for the Putin Bass?
Long live Putin, Abdrazakov, Muti and Art!
‘Benefit of artists’.
Wrong, music is not a reflection of “society” – that is precisely the postmodernist nonsense that has landed us in this mess. Music is an expression of the universal human condition: the emotions we all feel, and the rituals of birth, life, and death that we all go through. That is why we can still enjoy the music of Mozart, who inhabited a very different society to ours. All the advanced classical musics of all civilisations tap into this human condition, from the maqam of Islamic Civilisation, to Sinic “opera”, to Indian Raga, and indeed, to the unique and beautiful chanting of the Orthodox Christian civilisation, which developed into a wonderful strain of western-inspired classical music. To say that any of this is reflective of something as superfluous and fleeting as “society” is to cheapen all music.
The inconvenient truth is that you and I have more in common than we may care to admit with people we deem “bad” or “evil”. We all are born, experience love, loss, hunger, and tiredness. And that truth is our only path out of conflict, we have to look into each other’s eyes and acknowledge our shared humanity at this time. That is our job as musicians.
Rock and roll is not an expression of society?
Hip hop?
Jazz?
Pop?
Rap?
We learn something every day.
Maybe the problem is classical music is an expression of a society that no longer exists, but with a starry eyed sense of self-entitlement wants to impose itself on today’s world.
Rock, pop, folk and so on have lyrics; most of the classical music has none and wordless music is universal. This is why it was so easy for LVB to dedicate his 3d to Napoleon, then switch sides and dedicate this same music to those who fought against him. Those who are unaware of this fact can think of whatever or whoever they want while listening. They can think about Giuseppe Garibaldi or Greta Tunberg or saving whales or the last parent – teacher conference they’ve been to or about absolutely nothing; this is all personal. As for me, though I am aware of this fact, I forget about it after the 1st notes and the music carries me away. But you can’t be carried away with your own thoughts and emotions when listening to Dylan’s North Country Blues or Pink Floyd’s The Gunner’s Dream. It is their thoughts and emotions that become yours.
Excellent post, Ed! Thank You!
What a load of cobblers.
Pretty much the same argument used by Netrebko and her agent(s) to help rescue a career on the brink of collapse due to her political affiliations.
” I still hope to meet my audience worldwide and share my art with you soon.”
Well, they do say “Hope is eternal”. But in this case, it turns out that lots of Western theaters have a sense of decency. Like we pointed out before, the San Carlo showed decency.
This Abdrazakov’s post was so brazen that it could’ve been written by his ‘buddy’ Muti, who continued to attempt to rehabilitate the Putin bass recently in Japan, and even trolled ““We will be lucky to have an exceptional singer, Ildar Abdrazakov”, as reported by Operawire: https://operawire.com/riccardo-muti-putin-supporter-ildar-abdrazakov-team-up-for-japan-attila/
Muti has “cultural” ties with the Russian criminal regime and/or his stooges (like Putin, the Stallion is a man of “culture” and “beauty”). He famously let Gergiev conduct his Cherubini orchestra at the Ravenna Festival during the covid lockdown era, a very rare ‘privilege’.
Muti is a recipient of the Russian Order of Friendship award (conferred on him by Putin, and proudly advertised for many years on the Italian Stallion’s biography) and a member of the Russian Academy for the Arts, an honor conferred on him just a few months before the start of the Ukraine war; that is, many years after the first 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine and illegal annexation of Crimea. Muti was thrilled to accept an honor from a “cultural institution” presided by a Putin sycophant and tied to a criminal regime that invaded and annexed a piece of a free European country in 2014, just like Nazi Germany did.
The Russian Academy for the art is presided by Tsereteli, who sculpted a controversial Putin statue inspired – the sculptor declared- by Putin’s “body and soul”. (https://hum54-15.omeka.fas.harvard.edu/items/show/1112?tags=Tsereteli).
As we continue to follow Abdrazakov’s adventures, I hope that SD, for the next episode, will publish a picture of Muti and the Putin bass hanging together
Now, asking for everyone’s forgiveness, we really VERY rarely digress from the topic at hand to discuss Muti, but …. we can’t be silent:
After kicking out the once-in-a-generation talented principal horn Cooper from the CSO, Muti hired a subpar principal horn as his last act of musical vandalism as music director.
Well, you don’t say – people in Chicago are not happy. Like, not at all. During his last, painful residency, the Chicago Classical review gently reported “a spindly horn solo in the first movement and a later horn bobble in the Scherzo.” But the comments on the website were not so kind:
“It’s astonishing they’ve already given tenure to the newish principal horn. Why? The previous one was brilliant but sent packing.”
“Have to agree with everything written here. Performance just lacked intensity and even though I’m not the most familiar with Beethoven’s Emperor concerto, I could hear the missed notes.”
“As for the “Eroica,” this is the third time Muti has performed LvB’s 3rd in the past few years. This one along with the first RM presented sounded more like Haydn’s 105th or Mozart’s 42nd. Lacked drama.”
“As a longtime subscriber, … I renewed my 2024-2025 subscription looking forward to hearing him [Muti] performing Berlioz’s “The Damnation of Faust.” Sadly, another Verdi’s Requiem has replaced the Berlioz. … this will be the fourth one I will have heard it in RM’s 12-year directorship. ”
“There were many missed notes in the Sunday matinee. I love the characterization of Muti’s performance here as “implacable.” Exactly. And the horn section needs immediate attention! Problems galore.”
“Why does Muti kiss Uchida’s hand? He did the same to the woman concertmaster at Sunday’s performance. He shakes hands with the men but kisses the women’s hands. Why not just shake their hands instead – use both hands if he wants – but stop with raising their hands to his lips for a kiss. It’s creepy and paternalistic.”
“Shame on the CSO management to allow Music Director Emeritus to shove yet another Verdi Requiem down our throats in place of the Damnation of Faust. He has nothing new to offer other than the most jaw-droppingly slow and dull versions of warhorse symphonies in the history of music.”
“I agree with Dave and John re the horns. Nothing negative about any individual musician intended. However, for the board to allow an outgoing music director to make the type of decision re Cooper that he did, and to allow the rapid selection and granting of tenure to a successor is a great mistake of board leadership. In corporate governance, this is not acceptable behavior.”
Muti continues to deliver and please..
Read for yourself here https://chicagoclassicalreview.com/2024/11/muti-returns-with-uchida-in-csos-beethoven-bash/
I honestly thought Mozart 42 had plenty of drama.
But then again, my life is as dull as sunny side eggs, so that might explain it.
Let’s be fair though … they did just present the world premiere of ‘Ben Hur Redux’, and boasted to have what appeared to be the self-moving wax statue of Francis Ford Coppola in the audience.
What other orchestra does that?
Oh yes, yes!!! And I said all these things first though have no pride of ownership!
He’s no Chaliapin and you don’t hear audiences clamour for him. He’s a serviceable bass who made the dumb mistake of making his political leanings public. Political leanings that most of the world find reprehensible. I’m sure he can find gigs in Russia, China and North Korea. His opportunities are now limited in a mess of is own making.
I think you are being misled. This little guy is getting payed MILLIONS in Russia, to be a pro-putin propagandist.
If he was Chaliapin it won’t change a thing.
“my colleagues will agree with me that as artists we sing and play for you”
Sing-and-play-for-you-MY ASS.
Where were you Ildar for your “PUBLIC” when you canceled Boris Godunov shows at the Teatro alla Scala (one of the most important theatres in the world) just to go to Russia and sing at Sergei Shoigu’s, russian ex defence minister, luxurious banquets for millions in blood money?
Huh, Ildar? Where were you, singing and playing for your PUBLIC?
Legitimately laughing at the idea of decrying the influence of politics in art while talking about cancellations for performances of Verdi’s…Don Carlo…and Attila. Famously apolitical operas on famously apolitical subjects by a famously apolitical composer.
“A vocal supporter of his president’s wars”? When has Abdrazakov ever shown support for war?