unitedly and enthusiastically in favor of it or the principles of art
which it represented. Throughout the period there was a hankering for
the fleshpots of Egypt in the region of the Metropolitan boxes. It seems
desirable, therefore, that, though it is my purpose more specifically
in the next few chapters to tell the story of the seven years of German
opera, I should turn the light occasionally on the doings at rival
institutions. The first of the seven years at the Metropolitan Opera
House was the seventh year of Colonel Mapleson's tenancy of the Academy
of Music. He opened his season on November 10, 1884, but before then
James Barton Key and Horace McVicker experimented with Italian opera
for three weeks at the Star Theater. The organization was composed of
operatic flotsam and jetsam, such as is always to be found plentifully
in New York after operatic storms in South America or Mexico, and was
neither better nor worse than scores of other companies heard here
before and since. Like most of these, too, it had a mouth-filling
name--the Milan Grand Opera Company--but, like few of them, it had a
capital tenor, Signor Giannini, who at a somewhat later period we shall
find in Colonel Mapleson's forces. Other members of the company whose
names are worthy of preservation were Maria Peri (soprano leggiero),
Signora Damerini (dramatic soprano), Signora Mestress (contralto), and
Signor Serbolini (bass). The experiment resulted in financial failure,
but it introduced to New York the South American opera, "Il Guarany,"
by Señor Gomez. In Colonel Mapleson's company were Mme. Patti,
Signora Ricetti, Mme. Emma Nevada, Signor Nicolini, Signor Vicini, and
Signor Cardinali (tenors), Mme. Scalchi, Mme. Fursch-Madi, Signori de
Pasqualis, Cherubini, Caracciolo (bassos), Signor de Anna (barytone),
and Signor Bassetti (tenor), otherwise Mr. Charles Bassett, like Mme.
Nevada, an American singer. The subscription ended on December 27th, and
in the following week he gave four extra performances, at two of which
he reduced the prices, though they were of a higher artistic order than