for new works. Since Drigo was well known as a composer, Vsevolozhsky employed him in the dual capacity of kapellmeister and Director of Music, a position which would require Drigo to fulfill all of the duties of the staff composer with regard to adapting and correcting scores at the behest of the Ballet Master. The Imperial Theatre's renowned Premier Maître de Ballet, the Frenchman Marius Petipa, revived Jules Perrot's 1841 romantic masterpiece La Esmeralda for the visiting Italian ballerina Virginia Zucchi in 1886. For the revival Drigo was assigned the task of refurbishing the old score of Cesare Pugni. Drigo was commissioned to compose a four-part Pas d'action to showcase the dramatic gifts of the ballerina Zucchi that also included virtuoso solos for violin and cello, with the violin solo crafted especially for the great Leopold Auer, principal violinist in the Imperial Theatre's orchestra. The revival of La Esmeralda premiered to great success on with the Imperial family in attendance. Drigo's Pas d'action remains part of the performance score for La Esmeralda to the present day, and is often extracted from the full-length work as La Esmeralda Pas de Six. With the success of his work on the score of La Esmeralda, the director Vsevolozhsky gave Drigo his first commission to compose for a complete ballet score. This was La Forêt enchantée (The Enchanted Forest), which was not only Drigo's first full-length ballet but also the first original work choreographed by the Imperial Theatre's newly appointed second Maître de Ballet Lev Ivanov. La Forêt enchantée was staged especially for the annual graduation performance of the Imperial Ballet School, with the top graduates in the leading roles. The work premiered on on the stage of the school's theatre, and was subsequently transferred to the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre, where it premiered on with the Italian ballerina Emma Bessone in the lead role of Ilka. Although Ivanov's choreography was not well-received, Drigo's score was highly praised. A critic from the Saint Petersburg newspaper The New Time reviewed that In 1888 Marius Petipa was preparing his next work, La Vestale, set in the ancient Roman Empire. The score was written by the music critic Mikhail Ivanov, who provided what was at that time considered to be a highly symphonic score for ballet. The work was produced for the Italian Elena Cornalba, who appealed to Petipa for additional, more dansante music for her