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 of Rimsky-Korsakoff there are perhaps not twenty which conform to the original text."

Whether or no Rimsky-Korsakoff spoiled his friend's opera I have no personal means of determining. Original scores of Boris do not, so far as I am aware, exist in New York. Apparently, they do not abound anywhere. It may, however, be offered in extenuation of Rimsky-Korsakoff's act that his version has consistently held the stage and has made a tremendous effect wherever it has been presented. The original work may or may not have surpassed its successor, but, at any rate, Boris, as it now stands, is one of the most solid, one of the most striking, one of the most beautiful works in the current repertory.

The case of Oberon is another matter altogether. Regarding with greedy eyes the success of Der Freischütz in London, the Director of Covent Garden Theatre sought a new work from