When I arrived at noon in the Great Hall for the general rehearsal [of the third cast for the Conservatoire production of The Marriage of Figaro] it turned out that this was in fact to be the perforamance, a 'sudden death' one arising from the fact that, although tomorrow's performance was billed as an exam performance, it had been disallowed by the mayor. Luckily I managed to slip in, but poor old Tsypochka had fallen right into it. Although the hall was about half full of people from the Conservatoire who happened to be there and had come in on impulse, there were no critics, no wider public, no atmosphere of a public event. A good thing I did not swap with Tsybin. He is a fair conductor, but I do not greatly like his work. In the first chorus it was not just a matter of them getting a little out of synchronization with him; the chorus came in a full eight bars early, when the orchestra was supposed to be playing on its own! Neither Tcherepnin nor Glazunov were there.