The two operas which follow in 1879 and 1880, while possessing many features in common with each other, differ wholly in character from _The Maid of Pskov_. In _A Night in May_ and _The Snow Maiden_ ("Sniegourochka") the dramatic realism of historical opera gives place to lyrical inspiration and the free flight of fancy. _A Night in May_ is taken from one of Gogol's Malo-Russian tales. _The Snow Maiden: a Legend of Springtide_ is founded upon a national epic by the dramatist Ostrovsky. Both operas offer that combination of legendary, picturesque and humorous elements which always exercised an attraction for Rimsky-Korsakov's musical temperament. In both works he shows that he has attained to a supreme mastery of orchestration, and the accompaniments in every instance go far to atone for his chief weakness--a certain dryness of melodic invention, except where the style of the melody coincides with that of the folk tune. _A Night in May_ reveals the composer as a humorist of delicate and fantastic quality. Rimsky-Korsakov's humour is entirely native and individual, having nothing akin to the broad, saturnine, biting wit of Moussorgsky, nor to the vigorous humour of Borodin's comic villains Eroshka and Skoula, in _Prince Igor_. Rimsky-Korsakov can be sprightly, fanciful, and arch; his humour is more often expressed by witty orchestral comments upon the text than by the melodies themselves. The first performance of _A Night in May_ took place at the Maryinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, in January 1880, but it was soon withdrawn from the repertory and only revived in 1894, at the Imperial Mikhaïlovsky Theatre. In 1896 it was given at the Folk Theatre, in Prague; and produced for the first time in Moscow in 1898. Besides being more lyrical and melodious in character than _The Maid of Pskov_, this opera shows evidences of Rimsky-Korsakov's intervening studies in the contrapuntal treatment of the choruses and concerted numbers. The scene of _A Night in May_, as in several of Gogol's tales, is laid near the village of Dikanka in Little Russia. Levko (tenor), the son of the Golova or Headman of the hamlet, is in love with Hanna (mezzo-soprano), but his father will not give consent to the marriage, because he admires the girl himself. In the first act Levko is discovered serenading Hanna in the twilight. Presently she emerges from her cottage and they sing a love duet. Then Hanna asks Levko to tell her the legend of the old deserted manor house that stands beside the mere. He appears reluctant, but finally relates how once a Pan (a Polish gentleman) dwelt there with the Pannochka, his fair daughter. He was a widower, and married again, but his second wife proved to be a witch who caused him to turn his daughter out of the house. The girl in despair drowned herself in the mere and became a Roussalka. She haunted the lake at night, and at last, catching her stepmother perilously near the edge of the water, she lured her down into its depths.