The Legend is a one-act tragic opera composed by Joseph Carl Breil to an English libretto by Jacques Byrne. It premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on March 12, 1919 in a triple bill with two other one-act operas, John Hugo's and Charles Cadman's Shanewis. Its melodramatic story is set in Muscovadia, a mythical country in the Balkans, and involves an impoverished nobleman turned bandit, his daughter Carmelita, and her lover Stephen, a captain in the hussars. The action unfolds over a single night at the end of which both lovers are dead—Stephen stabbed to death by Carmelita and Carmelita shot by Stephen's fellow hussars. The only one of Breil's six operas to be performed by a major opera company, The Legend received scathing press reviews and after its three performances a