The attention of music lovers and fans of the famous Russian opera singer Ildar Abdrazakov was riveted to the Bashkir capital.

42-year-old artist is one of the most sought-after domestic musicians abroad, who has successfully performed on the stages of the best opera houses in the world, has decided to change roles by trying himself as a director. Ildar Abdrazakov chose for his debut an early opera by Giuseppe Verdi about the leader of the Huns, who had never before been staged in Ufa.

“Attila” is rare for the Russian stage: before the Bashkir production, the opera was presented only in the Mariinsky Theater back in 2010. The title role was performed by Ildar Abdrazakov, a few months before he made his debut in “Attila” at the New York Metropolitan Opera Theater.

For twenty years of a brilliant artistic career, the singer has been playing the part of Attila several times on many different stages of the world. A new season in December last year, the Mecca of the opera world – the Milan theater La Scala – was opened by Attila with Ildar Abdrazakov in the lead role. The performance was a real event – even the president of the republic Sergio Mattarella, who had not appeared in the theater for two years, attended the premiere. Producers very much hope that Attila will remain in the repertoire of the Bashkir Opera for a long time, and judging by how the public took the opera at the premiere shows, they have every reason to do so. The performance, demonstrating the admiration for the “great opera  tradition”, turned out to be most welcome. The director admitted to journalists that now there is a great lack of such operas for the Western audience, and in the future he intends to show the Bashkir “Attila” to the European public.