[1][2] Vitas is known for his falsetto and his eclectic musical style, which incorporates elements of operatic pop, techno, dance, classical, jazz, and folk.

Vitas became popular in Russia and other Eastern European countries in the early 2000s and also achieved success in Asia, including China, in 2005.

(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.

[17] 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.

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

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

Vitas started performing the song with artificial gills, which let the Russian media compare him to Ichthyander, a character in the novel Amphibian Man.

Performed as a teaser for the first leg of his "Philosophy of Miracle" tour, the show was filmed by TV-6 and later broadcast as part of the music program "Наша музыка".

In late 2002, Vitas received an invitation from Lucio Dalla, the composer of "Caruso", to perform this song together with him at the "Sanremo in Moscow" concert in the State Kremlin Palace on November 23, 2002.

During the process of recording the album, Vitas befriended Soviet and Russian composer Alexandra Pakhmutova,[28] who featured in his music video for her song "The Bird of Happiness".

[3] In addition to his singing career, Vitas also starred in a murder mystery television series called "Сволочь ненаглядная" ("Beloved Scoundrel"), in which he played a pop singer with an unusually high voice.

The concert performed in Saint Petersburg on 4 March 2007 was later released on DVD on Vitas' website, as well as officially in some countries, albeit with many songs removed.

The Sleepless Night tour included concerts in China and more elaborate presentations than the more conservative Return Home program.

It was the very first title track of the Mommy and Son album (released 1 September 2011), which included new songs, such as "C'est La Vie" (French for "Such is life"), "Once More", "Let the Father Teach!

[3] In early 2011, Vitas performed a series of seven Sleepless Night concerts in New York City, Toronto, Chicago, Miami, Vancouver, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Later that year, he played the role of Bolshevik Comintern official Grigori Voitinsky in the Chinese propaganda film The Founding of a Party.

His large-scale concert at the Palace of Arts "Ukraina" in Kyiv in March 2012 was broadcast in Ukraine's main TV channels and later released in DVD.

He celebrated his 20th anniversary as an artist starting with a new concert tour in April 2019 in Moscow, while appearing at Evening Urgant on the day of his 40th birthday.

[44] He collaborated with Australian musician and DJ Timmy Trumpet on the song "The King" and performed with him at the Belgian rave festival Tomorrowland.

[49] He married his longterm girlfriend Svetlana Grankovska in 2006 in Odesa in a private ceremony solely attended by family members.

[citation needed] (with Elvis Wang) Vitas is also known in Russia for several high-profile incidents, following the investigations of which he had to face criminal and administrative liability.

[59][60] On May 10, 2013, in Moscow, Grachev hit a cyclist, Olga Kholodova, with his car near the VVC (All-Russian Exhibition Center).

[63] A video recording was released showing Vitas kicking one of the police officers and using obscene language against the operatives.

[64][65] In 2008, as a Ukrainian citizen, Grachev obtained a new driver's license from Ukraine but again violated traffic rules by driving into the oncoming lane.

[67] On August 26, 2013, the Ostaninsky court in Moscow found the singer guilty of committing a crime under Article 318 of the Russian Criminal Code and fined him 100,000 rubles for the incident involving the police officer.

[69][70] On March 27, 2018, the Odintsovo city court sentenced Grachev to seven days of arrest under Article 20.1 of the Administrative Code (petty hooliganism), which he served in the Istrinsky special reception center; he had previously been fined 500 rubles.