he also dispatched Yakov to the palace at Kamenny Ostrov in order to glean

some information out of Raden or Eiler. Finally, he could not endure these
backdoor attempts any longer and instead wrote directly to Edith Raden from
Interlaken on 2/14 July 1861. In a letter that barely conceals his indignation, he
complained: I still have no information about this matter which is so impor-
tant for Russia and for me.43 In fact, behind the scenes Yelena Pavlovna was
using her considerable inuence with Count Adlerberg, the Minister of the
Court. Although her efforts were eventually successful, she had had to compro-
mise and the original report received from the RMS was suppressed and re-
placed by another version in which Rubinstein had no part. The signicance of
the changes became apparent when the Charter of the Conservatory was pub-
lished that fall.
Rubinstein had been unable to attend the Vienna premiere of his opera,
Die Kinder der Haide, in February, but now there were plans to stage it again in
the fall. He traveled to the Austrian capital at the beginning of September,
but once more his hopes were dashed because the principal tenor had fallen
ill and the performance was postponed. The score of the opera was about to
be published by Spina, and it was not without a measure of irony that he re-
ported to Raden that his publishers request to have the opera dedicated to Tsar
Alexander II had been accepted.
With the fate of the Conservatory still in the balance, Antons future plans
seemed very uncertain. Once again he asked for Yakov to be dispatched to the
Mikhaylovsky Palace in an attempt to elicit information but to no avail. In Sep-
tember 1861 he met up with Nikolay, and the brothers concluded that the pro-
posal to set up the Conservatory had been rejected. Anton recommended that
Nikolay remain in St. Petersburg and take his place as resident musician with
the grand duchess; this was prompted by rumors that the Moscow branch of
the RMS was on the point of nancial collapse. On 19 September Anton left for
Berlin, where he planned to stay for four or ve weeks to discuss the libretto of
Feramors with Rodenberg. He called on Meyerbeer and Liszt; the latter, hav-
ing relinquished his old post in Weimar, was in the Prussian capital for a few
weeks en route to Rome. Within a few days, however, Anton received news from
Nikolay and Shustov that the Conservatory was to be founded after all. He wrote
immediately to Kaleriya Khristoforovna (24 September) to advise her that his
return to Russia would be delayed by a month, asking her to nd him an apart-
ment in St. Petersburg, and a valet.

Charter for a Conservatory

The appointment of Aleksandr Golovnin as the new Minister of Edu-
cation at the beginning of 1862 ushered in a period of reforms that directly
concerned the schools and the higher educational establishments. Golovnin
was well known for his liberal views, and talk of charters was in the air. The
ofcial committee set up in 1858 to revise the charter of the University of
St. Petersburg had nally published its report, and Konstantin Kavelin had been

96 Anton Rubinstein