Last Sunday there was a student production that included two acts of Ruslan* and one act of Faust**, accompanied by two pianos instead of orchestra. In January it will be done with orchestra. Kankarovich, Tolstyakov and Kolomiitsev conducted the two-piano version and the other student conductors, myself included, played the pianos. I have not been to a single opera class this year, so could make no claims to be one of the actual conductors, but I was very happy to be playing for it. We took the score and by mutual agreement divided the piano score into two parts, moved two pianos into the pit to form the orchestra, while the conductor occupied his usual position, and we played, so we thought, splendidly. But the general feeling was that we did not play splendidly at all, very badly in fact, and afterwards we came in for a lot of criticism.