Ukraine, Russian Embassy: ‘Italian authorities applauded Abdrazakov at La Scala’

Rome, 7 November (LaPresse) – The Russian Embassy in Italy, in a Facebook post, expresses ‘its full support and solidarity with baritone Ildar Abdrazakov,’ who became ‘the victim of a cowardly attack in Italy by Russophobic members of certain opposition political forces and small groups of Ukrainian and Russian immigrants imbued with extremist sentiments,’ Following this attack, ‘unfortunately, with the connivance of the Italian authorities, the singer’s participation in the staging of Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni” at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona was cancelled.’ The embassy recalls how the artist was ‘recently acclaimed, in December 2022, by Italian leaders and the highest European officials at the opening of the opera season at La Scala in Milan, when Abdrazakov played the lead role of Boris Godunov in the opera of the same name written by Modest Musorgsky’. The embassy says it is “certain” that “no reasonable and sensible individual in Italy would ever agree with the crazy speculation spread by the press and social media” that his appearance in Mozart’s opera “would constitute a tool of ‘Kremlin propaganda” and a threat to Italy’.