At fifteen minutes past seven o'clock the doors of the Metropolitan Academy of Music were thrown open, and at eight o'clock there was not an unoccupied space in the house. The Handel and Hayden Philharmonic musicians took their places in front of the stage and began the overture. It consisted of a medley of familiar airs. The audience was so well pleased with what they heard that the musicians had to let them have it again. Then the curtain went up and "Box and Cox," a rather original version of the old farce, opened the show. It created some laughter, but the people came there to be pleased, and they were. "Old Black Joe" was sung, with an invisible chorus, and brought down the house. Daisey De Vere's coon song, with original business and grotesque imitations, made another big hit. Signor Collenso's classic--and it was well rendered--was tamely received, but when he treated his auditors to "Molly Bawn" and the "Boys of Kilkenny" they went into ecstasies. This was followed by the appearance of the rising young lawyer, who paid a glowing tribute to Shakespeare, and then introduced _King Richard_ and _Richmond_ to fight it out to a finish on Bosworth field for England, home, and booty. It was certainly a most elaborately grotesque combat. The people in front liked it apparently, and goaded on the combatants to redoubled efforts, and when the tyrant king was knocked out three cheers and a tiger were given with a vengeance, and the curtain fell on the first part amid uproarious applause.