the conductor made changes, deleting the management's requested prologue and epilogue. He also placed it on the schedule so that it would only have a two-day run. Spendiaryan's widow interceded by having Steinberg called to Moscow to rein in the wayward conductor and move the project to completion. When the opera finally debuted at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow on 24 June 1930, it was a resounding success. The premier was so popular with the public, if not the critics, that it led off the Bolshoi's following fall season. When Maria Maksakova left the title role, Parnok severed her interest in the project, though it toured successfully in Odessa (1930), Tbilissi (1932), Yerevan (1933) and in Paris (1951), among others. By the end of the year, both Parnok and Tsuberbiller were exhausted and spent several weeks at Uzkoye to regain their health. When they returned to Moscow, they moved to a new apartment, which gave them more room, as well as space to entertain many colleagues from Tsuberbiller's work. Parnok began pursuing Maksakova, attending all her performances, and was re-inspired in her work. She began work on a libretto for an opera Gyul'nara by Yuliya Veysberg, which was dedicated to Maksakova. Though Parnok's infatuation was not reciprocated, it fueled a creative period and by the end of 1931, she had completed the libretto, which was first performed in 1935. Parnok's last great love was the Georgian physicist, Nina Vedeneyeva. The two may have met as early as 1927, through Tsuberbiller, a colleague of Vedeneyeva. Vedeneyeva's son, Yevgeny, was living in exile at that time and Tsuberbiller, who had written a textbook used for decades in the high schools of Russia, helped her obtain books for him to maintain his studies. In January 1932, the relationship turned to romance, despite the facts that Parnok was still living with Tsuberbiller and Yevgeny disapproved of the relationship. As had happened before, her lover became her muse, inspiring her to write two cycles of poems, Ursa Major and Useless Goods. The frantic pace of her writing foretold the exhaustion she would suffer, which hastened her death, but Parnok was aware of the consequences. The references between these last two cycles and Parnok's adolescent poetry, make it clear that she had always known what she wanted to say, but until she reached her maturity, she did not know how to express her words. Their emotional