This article investigates the role played by aristocrats in the exchange of repertoire and musical personnel between Russia and Western Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It discusses the involvement of three significant figures in the political and cultural milieus of the Russian Empire: Count Nikolay Petrovich Sheremetev (1751–1809), Prince Nikolay Borisovich Yusupov (1750–1831) and the Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich Romanov (who ruled as Paul I from 1796 to 1801). The central focus is on Sheremetev, whose correspondence with Marie-François Hivart, a Parisian cellist he met during a grand tour, allows us to reconstruct a clear picture of how French opera was imported and adapted at his estate theatres in the Moscow area. Yusupov and the grand duke likewise established international musical contacts during their European tours of the 1770s and 80s, and exploited them in their private and public theatrical activities in Russia. Yusupov, who was particularly fond of Italian opera, may be regarded as Sheremetev's counterpart in St Petersburg, while Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich channelled the musical contacts he established in Italy to the Russian court and crown theatres.

Together, these cases suggest some of the ways in which Russia was entangled in European musical life around 1800, revealing mechanisms of exchange in which grand tours, diplomatic contacts and the personal interests of patrons played a significant part.