it had reached
its 577th performance, and from all accounts it still retains an
undiminished popularity.

[Illustration: THE THEATER, ODESSA.]

If we dissect this opera and examine its wonderful mastery of technique
and its depth of musical inspiration, it displays beauties which
cannot fail to appeal to connoisseurs of every race and school. But
regarded as a whole, one is inclined to doubt its ever becoming a
standard work outside its native home. Its true scope and meaning
can only be justly estimated by a public acquainted with Russia
herself, with her people, her history and her innermost modes of
thought.

Glinka attached the highest value to the folk-song, of which, as
already stated, he found a treasure trove ready to his hand. Nothing,
though, was further from his thoughts than to employ this material
in _pot-pourri_ style. Russians themselves are all agreed that it
would be difficult to select one whole folk-song from any single
work of Glinka's. It would naturally require a native of Russia
with an accurate knowledge of these native tunes to tell us exactly
when and where he used them. He seized their mood. In this way he
developed every species of Sclavonic folk-song--Great Russian,
Little Russian, Circassian, Polish, Finnish--with a passing flavour
contributed by Persia, for undoubtedly Oriental music had, at some
remote period, influenced its Sclavonic neighbour very strongly.
Glinka may be said to have attained his end almost unconscious
of his mode of procedure. Determined to compose Russian music,
he pursued his idea unremittingly, but it was only towards the
close of his life that he began to seriously analyze his effects,
asking himself whence he had obtained them and in what essential
points they exhibited their nationality. This inquiry involved
him in a field of research bewildering in its magnitude, and one
which his early death unfortunately prevented him from thoroughly
investigating. Nor is the task by any means completed now, some
forty years later, although many Russian musicians have thrown
considerable light upon its varied aspects. The first step towards
a folk-song analysis was the collecting of the melodies in sufficient
numbers for comparison. So much being done, it flashed upon Glinka
that there was an intimate connection between the Russian folk-song
and the most ancient Russian Church music. That is to say, the
melody and the freedom of rhythm typical of the folk-song had been