plays performed by the medical students of the great hospital in Moscow. Crude as were the productions of these two institutions they represent, however, the more spontaneous movement of the national life rather than the purely imported literary wares of the official theatre. Kunst died in 1703, and was succeeded by Otto Fürst, whose Russian name was Artemiem. He was a fair Russian scholar, and in a short time the company became accustomed to playing in the vernacular. But it cannot be said that this tentative national theatre was truly a success. It was a hothouse plant, tended and kept alive by royal favour, and when the Tsar removed his Court to St. Petersburg it gradually failed more and more to hold the attention of the public. The theatre in the Red Square was demolished before 1707. Fürst's company, however, continued to give performances at Preobrajensky, the residence of the Tsarevna Natalia Alexseievna, youngest sister of Peter the Great, and later on at the palace of the Tsaritsa Prascovya Feodorovna at Ismailov. The private theatre of this palace was never closed during the life of the widowed Tsaritsa, who died in 1723. Her eldest daughter, the Duchess of Mecklenburg, was fond of all sorts of gaiety; while her second daughter, the Duchess of Courland, afterwards the Empress Anne of Russia, who often visited her mother at Ismailov, was also a lover of the theatre. The ladies in waiting joined Fürst's pupils in the performance of plays, while the Duchess of Mecklenburg frequently acted as stage manager. The entrance was free, and although the places were chiefly reserved for the courtiers, the public seems to have been admitted somewhat indiscriminately, if we can believe the account of the page in waiting, Bergholds, who says that once his tobacco was stolen from his pocket and that two of his companions complained of losing their silk handkerchiefs. About 1770 a theatrical company, consisting entirely of native actors and actresses, was established in St. Petersburg under the patronage of the Tsarevna Natalia Alexseievna, who herself wrote two plays for them to perform. This princess did all in her power to second the efforts of Peter the Great to popularise the drama. In 1720 the Tsar sent Yagoujinsky to Vienna to raise a company of actors who could speak Czech, thinking that they would learn Russian more quickly than the Germans, but the mission was not successful. In 1723 a German company, under the direction of Mann, visited the new capital and gave performances in their own tongue. They were patronised by the Empress Catherine I. At that time the Duke of Holstein, who afterwards married the Tsarevna Anne, was visiting St. Petersburg, and the Court seem to have frequently attended the theatre; but there is no definite record of Mann's company giving performances of opera. A new theatre was inaugurated in St. Petersburg in 1725, the year of Peter the Great's death. CHAPTER II RUSSIAN OPERA PRIOR TO GLINKA