Valery Raku, Honored Art Worker of Russia, chief stage director of the Novaya Opera Theatre. He graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in Leningrad with a degree in musical stage directing (Professor Tikhomirov’s class). Upon graduation Valery Raku worked as a stage director in the Yekaterinburg Musical Comedy Theatre, staging there a number of productions, including several new compositions. At the same time he began to teach at the Yekaterinburg Drama Institute.

Later, in 1986 he acted as the chief director of the Tatar Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet, where he staged the following productions: Verdi’s Rigoletto, Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden, Rubinstein’s The Demon, Verdi’s Otello, Wagner’s Der fliegende Hollдnder (it was the first Russian production of the opera sung in German) and others. In 1987, Valery Raku was artistic director of the Shalyapin International Opera Festival, and in 1989, of the Shalyapin International Contest of Opera Singers. In 1991, he organized the Wagner International Festival in Kazan.

Valery Raku helped organize a new opera festival in Ufa and opera management in Volgograd. After he staged Verdi’s La Traviata and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, the Tomsk Operetta Theatre received a title of Musical Theatre.

Valery Raku has staged over 40 opera productions in different theatres of Russia, including Novosibirsk, Saratov, Ufa, Volgograd, Izhevsk, Voronezh, Kazan and many others. Many of his productions are still part of the repertoire of those theatres.

Valery Raku joined the Novaya Opera Theatre in 1994. Here he has staged Verdi’s I due Foscari, Catalani’s La Wally, Thomas’s Hamlet and Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden.