Soloists and orchestra of the Opera Centre performed in Izmailovo Manor of the Moscow State United Nature-reserve on June 20 and 21 in the ‘Opera Empire’ festival framework. Russia’s only opera open-air festival, organized by the museum-nature reserve with the support of the Prefecture of the Eastern Administrative District of Moscow, this year it is dedicated to the 170th anniversary of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the 175th anniversary of the birth of Modest Mussorgsky and 215th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Pushkin. The performances of the Opera Centre were dedicated to these three dates of the cultural events calendar: on June 20 – Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin was presented to the audience; on June 21 – a gala concert ‘A Dawn on the Moscow River’.
Despite the rainy weather, picturesque open-air hall could not accommodate all the audience, many of whom were young people and even children. Open air format which is so popular now, has allowed both, the public and the artists, to fully enjoy the unique atmosphere of the Russian classical manor. It seemed that singers’ voices were colored with a special light, harmony, subtle understanding of the characters by Pushkin and Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. Opera Centre Orchestra performed under the baton of Yaroslav Tkalenko.