"Il Barbiere," with Sembrich as a delightfully piquant Rosina, nevertheless moved with leaden feet in many of its scenes, because of the ponderous and lugubrious Stagno, who essayed a part far from his province, when he tried to sing the Count. On November 28th "Don Giovanni" was reached with the finest distribution of women's rôles, I dare say, that New York has ever seen, and one that ranked well with the famous London one of Tietjens, Nilsson, and Patti. Mme. Fursch-Madi was Donna Anna, Mme. Nilsson Donna Elvira, and Mme. Sembrich Zerlina. For delvers in musical history the performance had curious interest because it partook somewhat of an anniversary character. It fell within a day of exactly fifty-eight years after Italian opera had first been heard in America (November 29, 1825). Save Mme. Patti we have heard no Zerlina comparable with Mme. Sembrich, and Mme. Nilsson's singing of the airs, "Ah, che mi dice mai," and "Mi tradi quell' alma ingrata" lingers in my memory as an impeccable exemplification of the true classic style. The performance suffered shipwreck, however, in the famous first finale, because of the untunefulness of the orchestra, and the incapacity of the enlisted stage bands. In "Mefistofele," on December 5th, Nilsson appeared as Marguerite and Helen of Troy, and Trebelli as Marta and Pantalis. Nilsson had fixed the ideal of Helen in Europe and New York, and it is she, I believe, who started the questionable practice of having one performer impersonate both Marguerite and the classic Queen. Boito has given us so little of Goethe's Gretchen in his delightful, but sketchy, opera that it does not make much difference how the part is acted; but Helen is a character that seemed cut to the very form of Nilsson--regal in beauty and carriage, soul-moving in voice, serene in pose and gesture. She fitted perfectly into the fairest picture that a lover of ancient Greek life could conjure up, and moved through the classic act like a veritable Hellenic queen. The beauty, majesty, the puissant charm of a perfect woman of the antique type--all were hers. Campanini, who, like Nilsson, had been seen in the opera before the Metropolitan Opera House entered the lists, sang on this evening with peculiar enthusiasm; and with reason. Not only had he been instrumental in giving the opera to the people of London and New York, but, on this occasion, he was singing under the baton of his younger brother, Cleofonte, then a modest maestro di cembalo trying his 'prentice hand at conducting; now the redoubtable leader of Mr. Hammerstein's forces at the Manhattan. Four years later Cleofonte Campanini came again to New York as conductor of his brother's company organized for the production of Verdi's "Otello."