opposition to the Academy of
Music, by a number of the richest people in New York, who had made up
their minds to spare no cost to make it successful and to annihilate
the rival house. Having once built the new opera-house, it became
necessary to continue giving in it the only kind of opera adapted to
the vast dimensions of its auditorium, unless the stockholders should
become willing to pay the high annual rent without any return at all.
And thus German opera has been established in New York, if not for all
time, at least for years to come.

The fact cannot be too much emphasized that, properly speaking, there
is _no deficit_ at the Metropolitan Opera House. True, the total
expenses of the operatic season of 1886-1887 were about four hundred
and forty-two thousand dollars, and the receipts only two hundred and
thirty-five thousand dollars, thus necessitating an assessment of two
thousand five hundred dollars on each stockholder. But it must be
borne in mind that this assessment simply represents the sum that the
stockholders paid for their boxes. As there were forty-five
subscription nights, and as each box holds six seats, the price of
each was nine dollars, which can hardly be deemed too much for the
best seats in the house, considering that outsiders have to pay ten
dollars for these same seats, or sixty dollars for a box. A large part
of the assessment (about one thousand dollars for each stockholder)
would remain for covering the general expenses of the building
(including the mortgage bonds), even if no opera were given at all;
and surely the box-holders would be foolish if they refused to pay the
extra sum (four dollars and eighty-eight cents for each seat), which
insures them forty-five evenings of social and musical entertainment.
To persons of their wealth this extra sum is, after all, a mere
trifle; and it enables them to bask in the proud consciousness of
taking the place, in this country, of royalty abroad in supporting a
form of art that has always been considered pre-eminently
aristocratic.

Some of the stockholders make no secret of the fact that they would
very much prefer Italian to German opera, which is Sanskrit to them;
and every year, at the directors' meetings, the question of reviving
Italian opera is warmly debated. There is also a considerable number
of amateurs, editors, and correspondents who are eagerly waiting for
some signs showing that German opera is losing ground, so that they
may r