Vitas

Vitaliy Vladasovich Grachev or Vitaliy Vladasovych Grachov, known professionally as Vitas (Витас; stylised as VITAS), is a Russian singer.

Vitas is known for his Unique falsetto and his eclectic musical style, which incorporates elements of operatic pop, techno, dance, classical, jazz, and folk.

Vitaliy Vladasovich Grachev was born in Daugavpils, which was then in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, on 19 February 1979.

He soon moved with his parents to Ukraine, where he was raised in Odesa.

He applied to perform with his own songs at the 1997 edition of Chervona ruta festival, but was rejected as his repertoire lacked songs in Ukrainian.

Vitas had seriously considering going to Moscow for a while around 1998–1999.

During a play at the experimental theatre, he was spotted by producer Sergey Pudovkin, whom he gifted a cassette of his song.

A week later, Vitas and his girlfriend Svetlana left Odesa.

With Pudovkin, Vitas starting working on his debut for the Russian audience.

In order to make money and sustain himself and his girlfriend, he started working for youth channel TV-6.

They recorded a music video for "Opera #2", in which Vitas portrayed an eccentric lonely man with fish gills who lives in a bathtub with jars of fish and plays the accordion naked.

In 1999, Odesan regional television station Elan shot a music video for his song "Opera #1", which they recorded in Odesa.

During one of his night club performances, where he performed "Opera #2", he was spotted by a Russian producer, who recommended Vitas going to Moscow.

Having achieved prominence through Russian television in the early 2000s, Vitas crossed into Asian markets in 2005.

The music video premiered in December 2000 and received wide public attention.

(from his 2002 album of the same name) achieved viral success; the unusual music videos for "Opera #2" and "The 7th Element" have been cited as the most prominent examples of this.

Vitas has performed with entertainment labels such as Universal Music Group, and has toured extensively in several countries.

He designs his own stage costumes, and employs a backing band named DIVA during live performances.

Much of his recognition outside Russia and Asia came in the 2010s, when songs such as "Opera #2" and "The 7th Element" (both from his 2001 debut album Philosophy of Miracle) and "Smile!"

In an interview to Ukrainian website Fakty in 2012, Grachev claimed that Vitas was his official first name on his birth certificate.

At the age of 16, he officially changed his first name to the name's Ukrainian version Vitaliy.

Vitas has Russian, Lithuanian and Jewish roots.

He is the son of costume designer Lilia Mihailovna Gracheva who was Russian and musician Vladas Arkadevich Grachev-Marantzman who was of Lithuanian and Jewish origin.

His paternal grandfather, Arkadiy Davydovich Marantzman, who sang in an army choir, was Ashkenazi Jewish while his paternal grandmother was of Lithuanian descent.

Arkadiy Marantzman served in the Soviet army during World War II.

He showed an interest in music from an early age; his grandfather taught him to play the accordion at the age of 5.

He later said that he had composed at least 1,000 songs by the age of 12.

He attended an art school in Odesa from the age of seven, and appeared in various theatrical productions as a teenager.

His dean at the art school in Odesa reportedly hailed him as "a gift from God".

He took the name Vitas in his teen years as he found "Vitaliy Grachev" sounded too long.

He regularly clashed with his father about his late night rehearsing habits.

His father threatened to report him to the police as he was "behaving not quite adequately".

At the age of 21, Vitas and his 15-year-old girlfriend and future wife Svetlana ran away from home to Moscow, crossing the border into Russia on a train without Svetlana having the right documents.

They lived in bitter poverty before Vitas received public attention for his music.

After being rejected from a musical college in his native Odesa, his family did not have the money to send him to a private institution.

As a result, Vitas, already using the name as a pseudonym, started performing at night clubs.

He initially started his career as a Michael Jackson tribute act, but also performed parodies and his own songs.

He also made money, amongst others, by selling leftover bread from stores on the street as well as offering services as a photographer.

At night clubs, he had acts involving dancing, singing, comedy and magic tricks, including spoon bending.

He worked as an actor in an experimental theatre.