In the West he is usually billed as "Evgeny Nikitin"[1][2] Born in the Arctic port city of Murmansk, he trained at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, graduating in 1997.
He made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in Sergei Prokofiev's War and Peace in 2002; he has regularly returned to the New York company and is due to sing the Wagnerian role of Klingsor in 2013.
Roles in Wagner's operas hold a special place in Nikitin's repertoire, as a Wagnerian singer he has been noted by music critics.
But days before the festival began, he withdrew and was replaced by Samuel Youn after tattoos on his chest were shown by German media in still images from a video shot in 2006 or 2007.
[6] Second, via the press office of the Mariinsky Theatre,[7] he explained that a swastika never had been his intention and that the 8-pointed star had been assembled in stages.