lured into the fair one’s toils or in the slower _pas de fascination_, by which the conquest of him is completed, Stravinsky’s sense of the ludicrous has turned two slender occasions to most diverting account. A piece of clever orchestration is a passage at the outset of the opening scene where the composer succeeds not only in reproducing the peculiar sounds of an old hurdy-gurdy, but weaves the opposition between two such competing instruments into a most entertaining and harmonious discord.’ As in all the other Stravinsky ballet compositions, the orchestration of _Petrouchka_ is realistically true to the action and the characters of the play. It is full-blooded and modern. It breathes an air of the unsophisticated joy of a simple people who attend to their affairs regardless of conventional restrictions. Nijinsky, with his dramatic flexibility and vigor, makes the play a vivid fairy tale in actuality, or rather gives life to a dream of a fairy tale. ‘That the ballet is thereby endowed with meaning, an inwardness, which it might not otherwise possess, must be accounted as a tribute to the dancer’s genius,’ writes an English critic. Another splendid Stravinsky ballet performed by the Diaghileff company is _L’Oiseau de Feu_. Fokine has arranged the music successfully in this ballet. Like _Petrouchka_, it is based upon a folk-tale. The overture of the play indicates that a fantastic story is to follow. Strange mutterings and unexpected harmonies dispose the hearer to an atmosphere of another world. The adventurous pantomime opens in a gloomy forest emanating an air of midnight mysteries. But the music glows gradually like the magic glow in the forest. One sees the spectacular Fire Bird floating downward toward the stage. Now dancing and music melt into one fascinating picture of two dimensions, to which the brilliant scenic effects add a special spiritual note. Performed by Karsavina, as the Fire Bird, the ballet is excellent. But Stravinsky has succeeded less well in his post-impressionistic _Le Sacre du Printemps_. This consists of two tableaux of ancient pagan Russia. The first scene is the adoration of the earth; the second, the adoration of the sun. The music is less spontaneous and less graphic than that in Stravinsky’s other ballets. But, all in all, Stravinsky remains the greatest drawing card and the greatest æsthetic factor in the art of the Russian ballet rebels. A charming number in the repertoire of the Diaghileff company is Balakireff’s _Thamar_. Balakireff wrote this as a symphonic poem on an Oriental theme, but Bakst has manufactured out of it a ballet. The music is very beautiful and typically Russian. The story is a thrilling tale of Caucasian life, which takes place at an ancient castle built in a gorge of romantic mountains. But because it is an artificial construction, it is less interesting musically and choreographically than the Stravinsky ballets.