these incidents are set forth in the opera with a Wagnerian luxury of stage accessories and scenic effects. As regards structure, _Sadko_ combines--as I have said--the lyrical and declamatory elements. It is pre-eminently a national opera in which the composer has conveyed a truthful picture of the customs and sentiments of an archaic period. In _Sadko_ we find many melodies completely modal in character. The Sea Queen's slumber song in the seventh scene is Dorian, Sadko's aria in the fifth scene is Phrygian, and so on. The song of Nejata has an accompaniment for harps and pianino which gives the effect of the _gusslee_. Besides the national element, Rimsky-Korsakov introduces characteristic songs of other countries. In the scene in which Sadko generously restores to the merchants the goods won from them in his wager, keeping only a fleet of merchant vessels for himself, he requests some of the foreign traders to sing the songs of their distant lands. The Varangian guest sings a song in a brisk, energetic rhythm, quite Scandinavian in character; the Venetian complies with a graceful barcarolle, while the Indian merchant charms the audience with an Oriental melody of rare beauty. The musical interest of _Sadko_ is in fact very great. If there is any truth in the suggestion that Rimsky-Korsakov composed _Mozart and Salieri_ and dedicated it to Dargomijsky as a kind of recantation of certain Wagnerian methods, such as a limited use of _leitmotifs_ to which he had had recourse in _Sadko_, then his return to the purely lyrical style in his ninth opera, _The Tsar's Bride_ (_Tsarsky Nievesta_), may equally have been a kind of apology to the memory of Glinka. But it seems far more probable that he worked independently of all such ideas and suited the musical style to the subject of the opera. _The Tsar's Bride_, in three acts, was produced by the Private Opera Company at Moscow in 1899, Ippolitov-Ivanov being the conductor. From Moscow it travelled first to the provinces, and reached St. Petersburg in the spring of 1900. As it is perhaps the most popular of all Rimsky-Korsakov's operas, and one that is likely to find its way abroad, it is advisable to give some account of the plot. It is based on one of Mey's dramas, the subject of which had temporarily attracted Borodin some twenty years earlier. The Oprichnik Gryaznoy falls madly in love with Martha, the beautiful daughter of a merchant of Novgorod named Sobakin; but she is betrothed to the Boyard Lykov. Gryaznoy vows she shall never marry another, and procures from Bomely, court-physician to Ivan the Terrible, a magic potion which is to help his cause. His former mistress Lioubasha overhears the conversation between the Oprichnik and Bomely. She makes a desperate effort to win Gryaznoy back to her, but in vain. In the second act the people are coming away from vespers and talking about the Tsar's choice of a bride. Martha, with two companions, comes out of the church.