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.[1] 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
- ↑ After the first edition of Rimsky-Korsakoff's My Musical Life (Knopf; 1923) was on the market, I received a letter from Mr. O. G. Sonneck informing me that the original vocal score of Boris had reposed in the Library of Congress at Washington "for years and years." No American critic, so far as I know, had hitherto been informed of that fact. Certainly, in all the protracted discussion that has raged in the press over this question, the phrase "the original score is not available for examination" has constantly bobbed up. I have no present intention of examining this score myself, but any one who suffers from curiosity, is apparently at liberty to do so.
