Bass Evgeny Nikitin loses starring role over chest tattoo.
by Paul J. Pelkonen
The sins of Germany's past are very much on the mind of opera-goers as the Bayreuth Festival opens next week. The big story from the Green Hill: Russian bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin cancelled his appearance at this year's festival, due to a tattoo that originally depicted a swastika.
Mr. Nikitin, 38 was scheduled to sing the title role in the Festival's lone new offering this season, a staging of Der Fliegende Holländer. His cancellation was announced two days ago. A replacement, Korean bass Samuel Youn as named yesterday for the new production, which opens July 25.
A tattoo on Mr. Nikitin's chest originally depicted the symbol of Hitler's Germany, along with Germanic runes that the singer, a native of the Russian city of Murmansk, picked out in a tattoo parlor many years ago. The symbols have absolutely no political significance for me, but a spiritual one. I was never a member of a political party and am still not today," he said in an e-mail to the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
by Paul J. Pelkonen
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| Bass Evgeny Nikitin's chest tattoo (left) has cost him a starring role at the Bayreuth Festival. Photo from Intermezzo. |
Mr. Nikitin, 38 was scheduled to sing the title role in the Festival's lone new offering this season, a staging of Der Fliegende Holländer. His cancellation was announced two days ago. A replacement, Korean bass Samuel Youn as named yesterday for the new production, which opens July 25.
A tattoo on Mr. Nikitin's chest originally depicted the symbol of Hitler's Germany, along with Germanic runes that the singer, a native of the Russian city of Murmansk, picked out in a tattoo parlor many years ago. The symbols have absolutely no political significance for me, but a spiritual one. I was never a member of a political party and am still not today," he said in an e-mail to the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
