Lev Dodin has broken numerous boundaries with the Maly Drama Theatre of St Petersburg, the company he has directed since 1983. Their collective devising, explorations, and discoveries for a repertory theatre based on the long-term development of its actors and the change, over time, of its productions make Dodin and the Maly unique on the international stage. Maria Shevtsova, whose recently published book Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance (Routledge, 2004) closely follows the company's work, here details Dodin's direction of opera, which, she argues, is inextricable from his approach to the theatre as such. Her discussion refers to opera productions which feature in her book, but she pays particular attention to Salomé and The Demon which, staged in 2003, could not be included in it. She also indicates Dodin's relation to such directors of opera as Strehler and Sellars. This article is a revised version of her keynote address at the FIRT/IFTR Annual Conference held in May 2004 in St Petersburg on the theme ‘The Director in the Theatre World’. Maria Shevtsova is co-editor of New Theatre Quarterly and Professor of Drama and Theatre Arts at Goldsmiths' College, University of London.