solo numbers. Having just witnessed a performance of La Forêt enchantée, she requested that Drigo should be the composer responsible for the supplemental dances she required. Drigo composed two additional variations for Cornalba known as L'echo (The Echo), which was written as a canon; and a Valse mignonne (Sweet Waltz). Drigo also wrote an extra variation for the character of Cupid known as L'amour, and a variation for the ballerina Maria Gorshenkova. Three of these pieces were later published. Le Talisman When plans were made for the next ballet starring Elena Cornalba, the ballerina requested that Drigo should be the composer responsible for the entire score. This was Le Talisman (The Talisman), a work which told the story of a Hindu Goddess who descends from heaven in order to test her heart against the temptations of earthly love. The ballet premiered on on the occasion of Cornalba's benefit performance. Despite a sumptuous production with many inspired choreographic episodes, the ballet's plot was something that critics and audiences alike found tedious. Nevertheless, Drigo's score was hailed as a masterwork of ballet music by contemporary critics. The artist Alexander Benois told in his memoirs of his extreme delight with Drigo's score, which he said inspired a "short infatuation" in him as a young student at Saint Petersburg State University: In the ensuing years, Drigo repeatedly received commissions from both Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov to compose supplemental variations, pas and incidental dances for insertion into older ballets. By the time Drigo left Russia in 1919, nearly every ballet in the repertory of the Saint Petersburg Imperial Theatres contained many of the composer's own additional pieces. Drigo later commented in his memoirs that he composed about 80 such pieces, and rarely received any additional payment for them. During the late 19th century, Petipa began to mount revivals of older ballets with increasing frequency, and the ballet master invariably called upon Drigo to revise and supplement the scores accordingly. Drigo took up residence in the Saint Petersburg Grand Hotel in 1889, which was to remain his home for the next thirty years. It was at this time that Drigo developed a close friendship with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who was in the process of composing the score for Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty. On the eve of the general rehearsal of the ballet Drigo fell ill, and asked Tchaikovsky if he could conduct the orchestra himself.