Minister of the Imperial Court, which brought about a lengthy correspondence by a commission set up to investigate whether or not Drigo's character, background and music were worthy of his offering a dedication to a Russian Empress. The response was favorable and the dedication was graciously accepted. Later years in Russia In the spring of 1902, Drigo and a group of dancers from the Imperial Ballet were invited by Raoul Gunsbourg, director of the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, to produce a ballet in Monaco. Drigo composed the music for the ballet-divertissement titled La Côte d'Azur (The French Riviera), set to a libretto by Prince Albert I. The ballet premiered at the Salle Garnier on 30 March 1902, and featured the Prima ballerina Olga Preobrajenska. Drigo's final original full-length ballet score was also Marius Petipa's final work — the fantastical La Romance d'un Bouton de rose et d'un Papillon (The Romance of a Rosebud and a Butterfly). The ballet was to have had its premiere at the Imperial Theatre of the Hermitage on but was abruptly canceled, the official reason given being the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War. Drigo was vacationing in his native Italy during the outbreak of World War I in 1914, which prevented him from returning to Russia for another two years. Soon after his arrival in Petrograd he was evicted from his home at the Grand Hotel, which was converted to offices for the newly established Soviet government. For a time Drigo was forced to live in considerable poverty in a camp with a group of his fellow Italian émigrés. He later recalled in his memoirs of the many cold evenings he spent with his close friend and colleague Alexander Glazunov waiting for hours in bread lines and subsequently carrying their rations home through the snow on a sled. Upon his first engagement as conductor after his return to the former Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, Drigo received a fifteen-minute standing ovation from the audience. Drigo returns to Italy In 1919 Drigo was finally repatriated to his native Italy. For his farewell gala at the former Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, the Ballet Master Fyodor Lopukhov mounted a new version of Drigo and Petipa's final collaboration, the ballet La Romance d'un Bouton de rose et d'un Papillon which Lopukhov staged under the title Le Conte du bouton (The Tale of the Rosebud). At the close of the gala, the renowned bass Feodor