The 35th International Feodor Chaliapin Opera Festival will take place in the capital of Tatarstan from February 1 to 20.

      The event will be opened with Pyotr Tchaikovsky's opera The Queen of Spades stged by Yury Alexandrov, the art director of the State chamber musical theater Saint Petersburg Opera.

      The Chaliapin Opera Festival is the oldest Russian festival of opera singing. For the first time it took place in 1982 with the initiative of Raufal Mukhametzyanov, the director of the M. Dzhalil Tatar Academic Theater.  The festival became all-Russian by 1985, and international by 1991. The event is referred to as "the cultural brand" of the Republic of Tatarstan.

      The festival visitors will see a set of opera classic masterpieces , such as Traviata, Madame Butterfly, Eugene Onegin, Requiem, and many others.