As a composer Napravnik is not strikingly original. His music has the faults and the qualities generally found side by side in the creative works of men who follow the conductor's vocation. His operas, as might be expected from so experienced a musician, are solidly constructed, written with due consideration for the powers of the soloists, and effective as regards the use of choral masses. On the other hand, they contain much that is purely imitative, and flashes of the highest musical inspiration come at long intervals. His first opera, _The Citizens of Nijny-Novgorod_,[50] was produced at the Maryinsky Theatre in 1868. The libretto by N. Kalashnikov deals with an episode from the same stirring period in Russian history as that of _A Life for the Tsar_, when Minin, the heroic butcher of Nijny-Novgorod, gathered together his fellow townsfolk and marched with the Boyard Pojarsky to the defence of Moscow. The national sentiment as expressed in Napravnik's music seems cold and conventional as compared with that of Glinka or Moussorgsky. The choruses are often interesting, especially one in the church style, sung at the wedding of Kouratov and Olga--the hero and heroine of the opera--which, Cheshikin says, is based on a theme borrowed from Bortniansky, and very finely handled. On the whole, the work has suffered, because the nature of its subject brought it into competition with Glinka's great patriotic opera. Tchaikovsky thought highly of it, and considered that it held the attention of the audience from first to last by reason of Napravnik's masterly sense of climax; while he pronounced the orchestration to be brilliant, but never overpowering.