"Joy shared is Joy doubled."
--GOETHE.



PREFACE

The making of this book was prompted by the fact that with the season
1907-08 the Metropolitan Opera House in New York completed an existence
of twenty-five years. Through all this period at public representations
I have occupied stall D-15 on the ground floor as reviewer of musical
affairs for The New York Tribune newspaper. I have, therefore, been a
witness of the vicissitudes through which the institution has passed
in a quarter-century, and a chronicler of all significant musical
things which were done within its walls. I have seen the failure of
the artistic policy to promote which the magnificent theater was built;
the revolution accomplished by the stockholders under the leadership
of Leopold Damrosch; the progress of a German régime, which did much
to develop tastes and create ideals which, till its coming, were
little-known quantities in American art and life; the overthrow of that
régime in obedience to the command of fashion; the subsequent dawn and
development of the liberal and comprehensive policy which marked the
climax of the career of Maurice Grau as an operatic director, I have
witnessed since then, many of the fruits of wise endeavor and astute
management frittered away by managerial incapacity and greed, and fad
and fashion come to rule again, where for a brief, but eventful period,
serious artistic interest and endeavor had been dominant.

The institution will enter upon a new régime with the season 1908-09.