Although not of influential importance, the name of Paul Ivanovich Blaramberg cannot be omitted from a history of Russian opera. The son of a distinguished General of French extraction, he was born in Orenburg, September 14/26, 1841. His first impulsion towards a musical career originated in his acquaintance with Balakirev's circle; but his relations with the nationalist school must have been fleeting, as some time during the 'sixties he went abroad for a long stay, and on his return to Russia, in 1870, he settled in Moscow, where he divided his time between writing for the _Moscow Viedomosty_ and teaching theory in the Philharmonic School. Later on he went to live on an estate belonging to him in the Crimea. Blaramberg has written five operas in all. _Skomorokhi_ (_The Mummers_), a comic opera in three acts, based on one of Ostrovsky's comedies, was composed in 1881, and was partly produced by the pupils of the opera class of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, in the Little Theatre, in 1887. The opera is a curious blend, some portions of it being in the declamatory manner of Dargomijsky, without his expressive realism, and others in the conventional style of _opera buffa_, degenerating at times into mere farcical patter-singing. It contains, however, a few successful numbers in the folk-style, especially the love-duet in 5-4 measure, and shows the influence of the national school. The music of _The Roussalka-Maiden_ is more cohesive, and written with a clearer sense of form. There are fresh and pleasant pages in this work, in which local colour is used with unaffected simplicity. Blaramberg's third opera, _Mary of Burgundy_, is a more pretentious work, obviously inspired by Meyerbeer. The subject is borrowed from Victor Hugo's drama "Marie Tudor." It was produced at the Imperial Opera House, Moscow, in 1888. In his fourth opera, Blaramberg has not been fortunate in his choice of a libretto, which is based upon one of Ostrovsky's "Dramatic Chronicles," _Toushino_--rather a dull historical play dating from 1606, the period of Boris Godounov's regency. Strong, direct, elementary treatment, such as it might have received at the hands of Moussorgsky, could alone have invested the subject with dramatic interest; whereas Blaramberg has clothed it in music of rather conventional and insipid character. In common with _Skomorokhi_, however, the work contains some admirable touches of national colour, the composer imitating the style of the folk-singing with considerable success. Blaramberg's fifth operatic work, entitled _The Wave_ (_Volna_), is described as "an Idyll in two acts," the subject borrowed from Byron's "Don Juan": namely, the episode of Haidée's love for Don Juan, who is cast at her feet "half-senseless from the sea." Of this work Cheshikin says: "It consists of a series of duets and trios, with a set of Eastern dances and a ballad for bass, thrown in for variety's sake, but having no real connection with the plot.