I find another reason for the comparative failure of so many of Tchaikovsky's operas. It was not so much that the subjects in themselves were poor, as that they did not always suit the temperament of the composer; and he rarely took this fact sufficiently into consideration. Tchaikovsky's outlook was essentially subjective, individual, particular. He himself knew very well what was requisite for the creation of a great and effective opera: "breadth, simplicity, and an eye to decorative effect," as he says in a letter to Nadejda von Meck. But it was exactly in these qualities, which would have enabled him to treat such subjects as _The Oprichnik_, _The Maid of Orleans_, and _Mazeppa_, with greater power and freedom, that Tchaikovsky was lacking. In all these operas there are beautiful moments; but they are almost invariably the moments in which individual emotion is worked up to intensely subjective expression, or phases of elegiac sentiment in which his own temperament could have full play. Tchaikovsky had great difficulty in escaping from his intensely emotional personality, and in viewing life through any eyes but his own. He reminds us of one of those actors who, with all their power of touching our hearts, never thoroughly conceal themselves under the part they are acting. Opera, above all, cannot be "a one-man piece." For its successful realisation it demands breadth of conception, variety of sentiment and sympathy, powers of subtle adaptability to all kinds of situations and emotions other than our own. In short, opera is the one form of musical art in which the objective outlook is indispensable. Whereas in lyric poetry self-revelation is a virtue; in the drama self-restraint and breadth of view are absolute conditions of greatness and success. We find the man reflected in Shakespeare's sonnets, but humanity in his plays. Tchaikovsky's nature was undoubtedly too emotional and self-centred for dramatic uses. To say this, is not to deny his genius; it is merely an attempt to show its qualities and its limitations. Tchaikovsky had genius, as Shelley, as Byron, as Heine, as Lermontov had genius; not as Shakespeare, as Goethe, as Wagner had it. As Byron could never have conceived "Julius Cæsar" or "Twelfth Night," so Tchaikovsky could never have composed such an opera as "Die Meistersinger." Of Tchaikovsky's operas, the examples which seem destined to live longest are those into which he was able, by the nature of their literary contents, to infuse most of his exclusive temperament and lyrical inspiration. CHAPTER XIV CONCLUSION