Among those who were carried along by the tide of national feeling which rose steadily in Russia from 1812 onward was the gifted amateur Alexis Nicholaevich Verstovsky. Born in 1799, near Tambov, the son of a country gentleman, Verstovsky was educated at the Institute of Engineers, St. Petersburg, where he took pianoforte lessons from John Field, and later on from Steibelt. He also learnt some theory from Brandt and Steiner; singing from an operatic artist named Tarquini; and violin from Böhm and Maurer. Verstovsky composed his first vaudeville at nineteen and its success encouraged him to continue on the same lines. In 1823 he was appointed Director of the Moscow Opera, where he produced a whole series of operettas and vaudevilles, many of which were settings of texts translated from the French. After a time he became ambitious of writing a serious opera, and in May 1828, he produced his _Pan Tvardovsky_, the libretto by Zagoskin and Aksakov, well known literary men of the day. The book is founded on an old Polish or Malo-Russian legend, the hero being a kind of Slavonic Faust. The music was influenced by Méhul and Weber, but Verstovsky introduced a gipsy chorus which in itself won immediate popularity for the opera. Its success, though brilliant, was short-lived. _Pan Tvardovsky_ was followed by _Vadim, or the Twenty Sleeping Maidens_, based on a poem by Joukovsky, but the work is more of the nature of incidental music to a play than pure opera. _Askold's Tomb_, Verstovsky's third opera, by which he attained his greatest fame, will be discussed separately. _Homesickness_ (_Toska po rodine_), the scene laid in Spain, was a poor work produced for the benefit night of the famous Russian bass O. A. Petrov, the precursor of Shaliapin. _The Boundary Hills, or the Waking Dream_, stands nearest in order of merit to _Askold's Tomb_. The scene is laid in mythical times, and the characters are supernatural beings, such as Domovoi (the House Spirit), Vodyanoi (the Water Sprite) and Liessnoi (the Wood Spirit). The music breathes something of the spirit of Russian folk-song, and a Slumber Song, a Triumphal March, and a very effectively mounted Russian Dance, which the composer subsequently added to the score, were the favourite numbers in this opera. Verstovsky's last opera _Gromoboi_ was based upon the first part of Joukovsky's poem "The Twenty Sleeping Maidens." An oriental dance (_Valakhsky Tanets_) from this work was played at one of the concerts of the Imperial Russian Musical Society, and Serov speaks of it as being quite Eastern in colour, original and attractive as regards melody but poorly harmonised and orchestrated as compared with the _Lezginka_ from Glinka's _Russlan and Liudmilla_, the lively character of the dance being very similar.