Possessing a deep and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form.

The fact that Chaliapin is far and away the best remembered of this magnificent quartet of rival basses is a testament to the power of his personality, the acuteness of his musical interpretations, and the vividness of his performances.

However, in the Russian pronunciation the initial consonant Ш is pronounced like sh in shop, not as ch in chop, and in reference books the surname is sometimes given a strict romanization as Shalyapin.

The dwelling was expensive for his father, Ivan Yakovlevich, who served as a clerk in the Zemskaya Uprava (Zemstvo District Council), and in 1878 the Chaliapin family moved to the village of Ametyevo (also Ometyevo, or the Ometyev settlements, now a settlement within Kazan) behind the area of Sukonnaya Sloboda, and settled in a small house.

He was then invited to sing at the Mamontov Private Opera (1896–1899); he first appeared there as Mephistopheles in Gounod's Faust, in which role he achieved considerable success.

At Mamontov Chaliapin met Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), who was serving as an assistant conductor there and with whom he remained friends for life.

In addition, from 1901, Chaliapin began touring in the West, making a sensational debut at La Scala that year as the devil in a production of Boito's Mefistofele, under the baton of one of the 20th century's most dynamic opera conductors, Arturo Toscanini.

In 1913 Chaliapin was introduced to London and Paris by the brilliant entrepreneur Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), at which point he began giving well-received solo recitals in which he sang traditional Russian folk-songs as well as more serious fare.

In 1925, when he performed in New York, his piano accompanist was a young Harry Lubin (1906-1977), later to become a composer of music for the television series The Outer Limits.

However, the harsh realities of everyday life under the new regime, and the unstable climate which followed because of the ensuing Civil War, combined with, reportedly, the encroachment on some of his property by the Communist authorities,[7] caused him to remain perpetually outside Russia after 1921.

Chaliapin's attachment to Paris did not prevent him from pursuing an international operatic and concert career in England, the United States, and further afield.

Largely owing to his advocacy, Russian operas such as Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, Glinka's Ivan Susanin, Borodin's Prince Igor and Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride and Sadko, became well known in the West.

Pabst's film was not a version of the Massenet opera but a dramatic adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes' novel, with music and songs by Jacques Ibert.

[8] Chaliapin's last stage performance took place at the Monte Carlo Opera in 1937, as Boris Godunov.Chaliapin lived in Paris, at 22 Avenue d'Eylau, where he died of leukemia.

Feodor Jr. was a character actor featured in Western motion pictures including Moonstruck and The Name of the Rose opposite Sean Connery.

Then, in 1932, Chaliapin published Man and Mask (Alfred A. Knopf, New York) to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of his first stage appearance.

He cut a prolific number of discs for the Gramophone Company, beginning in Russia with acoustical recordings made at the dawn of the 20th Century, and continuing through the early electrical (microphone) era.