Far more agreeable, because less pretentious, is the early secular opera, a German adaptation of Thomas Moore's "Lalla Rookh," entitled _Feramors_. The ballets from this opera, the Dance of Bayadères, with chorus, in Act I., and The Lamplight Dance of the Bride of Kashmere (Act II.) are still heard in the concert room; and more rarely, Feramor's aria, "Das Mondlicht träumt auf Persiens See." From the dramatic side the subject is weak, but, as Hanslick observes in his "Contemporary Opera"--in which he draws the inevitable parallel between Félicien David and the Russian composer--it was the oriental element in the poem that proved the attraction to Rubinstein. Yet how different is the conventional treatment of Eastern melody in _Feramors_ from Borodin's natural and characteristic use of it in _Prince Igor_! But although it is impossible to ignore Rubinstein's operas written to foreign texts for a foreign public, they have no legitimate place in the evolution of Russian national opera. It is with a sense of relief that we turn from him with his reactionary views and bigoted adherence to pre-Wagnerian conventions, to that group of enthusiastic and inspired workers who were less concerned with riveting the fetters of old traditions upon Russian music than with the glorious task of endowing their country with a series of national operas alive and throbbing with the very spirit of the people. We leave Rubinstein gazing westwards upon the setting sun of German classicism, and turn our eyes eastwards where the dawn is rising upon the patient expectations of a nation which has long been feeling its way towards a full and conscious self-realisation in music. CHAPTER VIII BALAKIREV AND HIS DISCIPLES