All is fair in Love and War, and the only ethical difficulty arises when they clash. This was the trouble with _Vladimir Igorievich_, heir of _Prince Igor_. Father and son had been taken in battle, and were held captive in the camp of the Tartars; but, while _Prince Igor_ felt very keenly his position (though treated as a guest rather than a prisoner and supplied every evening with spectacular entertainments), _Vladimir_ beguiled his enforced leisure by falling in love (heartily reciprocated) with the daughter of his captor, _Khan Konchak_. An opportunity of escape being offered, _Prince Igor_ seizes it, but _Vladimir's_ dear heart is divided between passion and patriotism, and before he can make up his mind the chance of freedom is gone. A study of the so-called "libretto" showed that this was the only thing in the opera that bore any resemblance to a dramatic situation. Figure, therefore, my chagrin when I discovered that the character of _Vladimir Igorievich_ had been cut clean out of the text of the actual opera. I could much more easily have dispensed with the buffooneries of a couple of obscure players upon the _goudok_ (or prehistoric hurdy-gurdy), who wasted more than enough of such time as could be spared from the intervals. There was no part of adequate importance for M. CHALIAPINE, so he doubled the _roles_ of _Galitsky_, the swaggering and dissolute brother-in-law that _Prince Igor_ left behind when he went to the wars, and _Khan Konchak_, most magnanimous of barbarians. Neither character gave scope for the particular subtlety of which (as he proves in _Boris Godounov_) M. CHALIAPINE is the sole master among male operatic singers. But to each he brought that gift of the great manner, that ease and splendour of bearing, and those superb qualities of voice which, found together, give him a place apart from his kind. Of the rest, M. PAUL ANDREEV, as _Prince Igor_, gave his plaint of captivity with a noble pathos. As for the chorus, it sang with the singleness and intensity of spirit which are only possible to a national chorus in national opera, and which (I hope) are the envy of the cosmopolitans of Covent Garden. The _clou_ of the evening was the ballet, already well-known, of the Polovtsy warriors, executed with the extreme of fanatic fervour and frenzy. The art of M. MICHEL FOKINE can turn his Russians into Tartars without a scratch of the skin. BORODINE'S music, taking on a more barbaric quality as the action travelled further East, here touched its climax, and the final scene, where _Prince Igor_ returns home and resumes the embraces of his queen, (a model of fidelity), was of the character of a sedative. "DAPHNIS ET CHLOE."