In 1860 Dargomijsky had been appointed director of the St. Petersburg section of the Imperial Russian Musical Society. This brought him in contact with some of the younger contemporary musicians, and after his return from abroad, in 1865, he became closely associated with Balakirev and his circle and took a leading part in the formation of the new national and progressive school of music. By this time he handled that musical language of "force and realism," of which we find the first distinct traces in _The Roussalka_, with ease and convincing eloquence. For his fourth opera he now selected the subject of _The Stone Guest_ (Don Juan); not the version by Da Ponte which had been immortalised by Mozart's music, but the poem in which the great Russian poet Poushkin had treated this ubiquitous tale. This work occupied the last years of Dargomijsky's life, and we shall speak of it in detail a little further on. Soon after the composer's return from abroad his health began to fail and the new opera had constantly to be laid aside. From contemporary accounts it seems evident that he did not shut himself away from the world in order to keep alive the flickering flame of life that was left to him, but that on the contrary he liked to be surrounded by the younger generation, to whom he gave out freely of his own richly gifted nature. The composition of _The Stone Guest_ was a task fulfilled in the presence of his disciples, reminding us of some of the great painters who worked upon their masterpieces before their pupils' eyes. Dargomijsky died of heart disease in January 1869. On his deathbed he entrusted the unfinished manuscript of _The Stone Guest_ to Cui and Rimsky-Korsakov, instructing the latter to carry out the orchestration of it. The composer fixed three thousand roubles (about £330) as the price of his work, but an obsolete law made it illegal for a native composer to receive more than £160 for an opera. At the suggestion of Vladimir Stassov, the sum was raised by private subscription, and _The Stone Guest_ was performed in 1872. Of its reception by the public something will be said when we come to the analysis of the work. We may dismiss _Esmeralda_ as being practically of no account in the development of Russian opera; but the history of _The Roussalka_ is important, for this work not only possesses intrinsic qualities that have kept it alive for over half a century, but its whole conception shows that Dargomijsky was already in advance of his time as regards clear-cut musical characterisation and freedom from conventional restraint. In this connection it is interesting to remember that _The Roussalka_ preceded Bizet's "Carmen" by some ten or twelve years.