In 1991, Evgeny Kolobov and a number of his like-minded colleagues, supported by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, founded the Novaya Opera Theatre of Moscow and was its artistic director until his sudden death by heart attack.[2]
One of Kolobov's lifelong ambitions was to revive undeservedly forgotten music and to produce new, modern interpretations of well-known compositions. Yevgeny Kolobov was the first opera conductor in Russia to stage Verdi's La forza del destino, Bellini's Il Pirata, Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, Catalani's La Wally, Verdi's I Due Foscari, Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov in the composer's original version and Thomas's Hamlet. He has also produced new, remarkable stagings of Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila, "O Mozart! Mozart..." (based on the opera Mozart and Salieri by Rimsky-Korsakov and Mozart's Requiem), Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Golovin's First Love (Kolobov's debut as stage director), Verdi's La Traviata.
Kolobov's style of conducting was highly expressive and energetic, he was acclaimed by opera lovers and critics alike as one of the best opera conductors in modern Russia.
^Большая Российская энциклопедия: В 30 т. / Председатель науч.-ред. совета Ю. С. Осипов. Отв. ред С. Л. Кравец. Т. 14. Киреев — Конго. — М.: Большая Российская энциклопедия, 2009. — 751 с.: ил.: карт.