It is the fourth time, when the Moscow Kremlin Museums held the Music Festival "Tsars and Muses: Opera at the Russian Court". In 2022 it will be dedicated to "The Duel: From Trial by Combat to a Noble Crime" exhibition project and will refer to the highest achievements of the national opera school during its heyday, i.e. the second half of the 19th century.

Following the exhibition theme, this year's festival will present images of noble knights and heroes – just such characters are embodied in the heroic and epic operas of Mikhail Glinka, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Mikhail Mussorgsky, and Alexander Borodin.

Another leitmotif of the festival will be the duel, an iconic concept for the Russian culture of the 19th century. The duel is inseparable from the notion of noblemen's honor – it lies at the heart of the romantic hero's worldview.

The main duelist of Russian culture was Alexander Pushkin, the most eminent theorist of dangerous duels who created a gallery of psychological images of duelists in his works also used this method of protecting honor and dignity.

It is impossible to overestimate Pushkin's role in creating national opera; his works formed the basis for sixteen Russian operas written by Russian composers ranging from Alexander Dargomyzhsky to Sergei Rachmaninoff, many of which the audience will experience at our festival.

General Sponsor of the Music Festival is OOO Pepeliaev Group