The present generation has heard little operatic music by Russian composers.
Rubinstein's "Nero" was not Russian music in any respect.

"Pique Dame," by Tschaikowsky, also performed at the Metropolitan Opera House, had little in it that could be recognized as characteristically Russian.
"Eugene Onegin" we know only from concert performances, and its Muscovitism was a negligible quantity.

The excerpts from other Russian operas have been few and they demonstrated nothing, though in an intermezzo from Tschaikowsky's "Mazeppa," descriptive of the battle of Poltava, which has been heard here, we met with the strong choral tune which gives great animation to the most stirring scene in "Boris"-- the acclamation of the Czar by the populace in the first act.

Of this something more presently.

There were American representations, however, of a Russian opera which in its day was more popular than "Boris" has ever been; but that was so long ago that all memories of it have died, and even the records are difficult to reach.