ances of The Barber of Seville. The manuscript parts of the overture and a trio were lost before the work was published; for the first, an earlier overture of the composer serves; for the second, sopranos substitute, during the lesson scene, whatever air or airs suit their voices and appeal to their tastes. Patti and Sembrich, indeed, often gave little concerts at this point in the opera, always singing three or four songs, frequently, seven or eight. Lucia was originally regarded as a tenor opera; now we only think of it as an excuse for a coloratura soprano to debate with a flute. As a result, the last act, which belongs to Edgardo, is omitted, and the work is terminated with the mad scene. As our opera-goers object to arriving at the theatre at six-thirty or seven, it has become necessary to cut huge chunks out of the Wagner dramas. Sometimes we are introduced to the Norns in Götterdämmerung, sometimes to Waltraute, but seldom to both together. Mr. Bodanzky, always original in such matters, dropped Alberich. I attended his next performance of Parsifal, hoping to find that the rôle of Gurnemanz had disappeared. No such luck. When Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride was produced at the Metropolitan Opera House it was in a German version, prepared by Richard Strauss, who had even composed the trio with which the opera ended.
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