Ildar Abdrazakov

The Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov earned praise from Opera News as "one of the most exciting Russian singers to emerge on the international scene..." Though Russian by nationality, he traces his heritage to three-quarters Bashkirian ancestry—an ethnic group native to southern Russia with its own language and autonomous region—along with one-quarter Tatar roots. Born on September 26, 1976, in Ufa, then capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan within the Soviet Union, he grew up in a household headed by a theater director father and an artist mother. Following their professional paths, he trained at the Ufa State Institute of the Arts and made his first stage appearance at age four in one of his father’s productions.

Several major Russian operatic prizes came his way in the late 1990s, among them victories at the international Rimsky-Korsakov Competition and the Obraztsova Competition. A decisive breakthrough arrived in 1998 when he took the role of Figaro in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre. He would later perform that character more than 100 times, remarking to Vanity Fair, "There are many aspects of the role," he says. "Comedy, drama, some lyric tones." Abdrazakov first attracted Western attention through Italian-language parts before turning to Russian repertoire. His 2000 triumph at Parma’s Maria Callas International Television Competition opened doors with Italian scouts, leading to a 2001 recital at La Scala.

The bass made his American debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 2004, appearing in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, an opera that features both the title role and Leporello in his repertoire. He has since assumed leading bass parts in Verdi operas including Attila, Macbeth, Luisa Miller, and Oberto, as well as Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia, Semiramide, and Moïse et Pharaon; Gounod’s Mephistophélès in Faust; Donizetti’s Anna Bolena; and Bellini’s Norma. In Russian opera he has distinguished himself in Borodin’s Prince Igor at the Metropolitan Opera, where he has performed regularly throughout the 2000s and 2010s.

His initial solo CD appearance occurred in 2006 on a Chandos recording of Shostakovich’s Words of Michelangelo. The solo recital Power Players followed on Delos in 2014, and he revisited the Shostakovich cycle in 2016 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, coupling it with Schoenberg’s Kol Nidre. He also contributed to a Grammy-winning CSO recording of Verdi’s Requiem. Deutsche Grammophon released Duets, a set of tenor-bass and baritone scenes pairing Abdrazakov with tenor Rolando Villazón, in 2017.