Some of my readers may remember the production of _Eugene Oniegin_ in this country, conducted by Henry J. Wood, during Signor Lago's opera season in the autumn of 1892. It was revived in 1906 at Covent Garden, but without any regard for its national setting. Mme. Destinn, with all her charm and talent, did not seem at home in the part of Tatiana; and to those who had seen the opera given in Russia the performance seemed wholly lacking in the right, intimate spirit. It was interpreted better by the Moody-Manners Opera Company, in the course of the same year. The subject was in many respects ideally suited to Tchaikovsky--the national colour suggested by a master hand, the delicate realism which Poushkin was the first to introduce into Russian poetry, the elegiac sentiment which pervades the work, and, above all, its intensely subjective character, were qualities which appealed to the composer's temperament. In May 1877 he wrote to his brother: "I know the opera does not give great scope for musical treatment, but a wealth of poetry, and a deeply interesting tale, more than atone for all its faults." And again, replying to some too-captious critic, he flashes out in its defence: "Let it lack scenic effect, let it be wanting in action! I am in love with Tatiana, I am under the spell of Poushkin's verse, and I am drawn to compose the music as it were by an irresistible attraction." This was the true mood of inspiration--the only mood for success. We must judge the opera _Eugene Oniegin_ not so much as Tchaikovsky's greatest intellectual, or even emotional, effort, but as the outcome of a passionate, single-hearted impulse. Consequently the sense of joy in creation, of perfect reconciliation with his subject, is conveyed in every bar of the music. As a work of art, _Eugene Oniegin_ defies criticism, as do some charming but illusive personalities. It would be a waste of time to pick out its weaknesses, which are many, and its absurdities, which are not a few. It answers to no particular standard of dramatic truth or serious purpose. It is too human, too lovable, to fulfil any lofty intention. One might liken it to the embodiment of some captivating, wayward, female spirit which subjugates all emotional natures, against their reason, if not against their will. The story is as obsolete as a last year's fashion-plate. The hero is the demon-hero of the early romantic reaction--"a Muscovite masquerading in the cloak of Childe Harold." His friend Lensky is an equally romantic being; more blighted than demoniac, and overshadowed by that gentle and fatalistic melancholy which endeared him still more to the heart of Tchaikovsky. The heroine is a survival of an even earlier type. Tatiana, with her young-lady-like sensibilities, her superstitions, her girlish gush, corrected by her primness of propriety, might have stepped out of one of Richardson's novels. She is a Russian Pamela, a belated example of the