Swastika Tattoo Forces Singer From Bayreuth
Evgeny Nikitin (pictured), who was singing the lead in this season’s only new production (“The Flying Dutchman“), was forced to withdraw after a German tabloid ran a photo of a bare-chested Nikitin, during his younger days as a heavy-metal drummer, with a swastika tattoo. (That symbol has since been inked over.) Don’t you just love how the holy temple of Wagner, one of most culturally significant anti-Semites who ever lived, can year after year put on productions of his operas but can’t handle a singer who once had an offensive tattoo in his long-ago rock ‘n’ roll youth. Sheesh.
