rs of rank who abound in Cairo. For truth's sake I must add
that, by the side of the most beautiful and richly dressed, were
Coptic and Jewish faces, with strange head-dresses, impossible
costumes, a howling of colours,--no one could deliberately have
invented worse. The women of the harem could not be seen. They were in
the first three boxes on the right, in the second gallery. Thick white
muslin hid their faces from prying glances."

This gives a striking picture of that extraordinary "first night."

Verdi was born at a time of turmoil and political troubles, and his
mother was one of the many women of the inhabitants of Roncole (where
he was born) who took refuge in the church when soldiery invaded the
village. There, near the Virgin, many of the women had thought
themselves safe, but the men burst in, and a general massacre took
place. Verdi's mother fled with her little son to the belfry and this
alone saved to the world a wonderful genius.

When Verdi was ten years old he was apprenticed to a grocer in
Busseto, but he was a musical grocer, and the musical atmosphere,
which was life to Verdi, surrounded him. He had a passion for leaving
in the midst of his grocery business to sit at the spinet and hunt out
new harmonious combinations: and when one of his new-made chords was
lost he would fly into a terrible rage, although as a general rule he
was a peaceable and kindly little chap. On one such occasion he became
so enraged that he took a hammer to the instrument--an event
coincident with a thrashing his father gave him.

There is no end of incident connected with this gentle and kindly
soul, who, unlike so many of his fellow geniuses, reflected in his
life the beauty of his art.

RIGOLETTO

CHARACTERS OF THE OPERA, WITH THE ORIGINAL CAST AS PRESENTED AT THE
FIRST PERFORMANCE

The Duke of Mantua Signori Mirate
Rigoletto Varesi
Sparafucile Ponz
Count Monterone Damini
Marullo Kunnerth
Matteo Borsa Zuliani
Count Ceprano Bellini
Usher of the Court Rizzi
Gilda Signore Teresa Brambilla
Maddalena Casaloni
Giovanna. Saini
Countess Ceprano Morselli
Page Modes Lovati