Chaliapin (Season 1)

Chaliapin (2023) is a Russian historical drama you can watch online on iFILM. A barefoot boy from the Kazan slums, singing in the street for coins, climbs all the way to the stages of the Bolshoi, La Scala and the Met.

The series follows Fyodor Chaliapin from a church choir and provincial troupes to worldwide fame. His bass opens every door, yet the bill comes due in private — a man pulled between two women he loves, then between his homeland and exile. Alexander Gorbatov plays the singer, with Yulia Snigir and Maria Smolnikova alongside. Director Egor Anashkin frames it as the story of a man whose gift and temper drag him in opposite directions.

This isn't a museum portrait. It tries to show Chaliapin as he really was — hot-headed, generous, unsure of himself behind the triumph. The period detail runs thick: merchant Russia, imperial theaters, revolution, the émigré years in Paris. One for fans of costume biopics and anyone drawn to the history of Russian opera. Stream Chaliapin online on iFILM.