Nevertheless, on the eve of the first production everything within the Opera House seemed in utter chaos. We were there until two o’clock in the morning and beheld a never-to-be-forgotten sight. The famous Munich stage manager Lautenschlager, imported for this special performance, was then still rehearsing raising and lowering the drops for Kundry’s big scene, and supernumeraries were scurrying about answering the conflicting demands of their directors; weary stage carpenters and “hands” were lying in the wings snatching such minutes of sleep as were possible, while high up in the stage lofts were stowed away the chorus boys to keep them out of the clutches of the S.P.C.C. To the onlooker, professional or amateur--to everybody except the confident Conried--there seemed nothing but disaster ahead. The brilliant success that evolved is too much a matter of operatic history to require recounting here. Conried had always drawn unsparingly on his reserves of energy and resistance, and there came at last a moment when those reserves were exhausted. An unpleasant episode, involving not himself, but one of his company, enlisted all his efforts. At its conclusion, he was met with a piece of bad news: Dr. Holbrook Curtis told him that he feared that a growth which had just appeared in the throat of Caruso would prevent this, now his particular star, from singing during the coming season and might end his career altogether. Conried went from the doctor’s office to the Opera House to watch an important, long-drawn-out rehearsal. Shortly thereafter he had a breakdown from which he never recovered. When he died, his widow and son requested me to arrange the funeral, and readily adopted my suggestion that as Heinrich Conried’s greatest success had been won in the Metropolitan Opera House, so his obsequies should be held there as Anton Seidl’s had been ten years before. I knew that Conried had not been connected with any synagogue, but I asked whether he had mentioned a preference. “None,” said his son. Being president of the Free Synagogue, I requested Rabbi Wise to officiate. I communicated with the directors of the Conried Opera Company, who consented to the plan, and every branch of the organization from the orchestra to the scene-shifters volunteered to help. It was an event which none who witnessed it will ever forget. The proscenium arch was hung with black, and the “set” was the mediæval interior used in the third act of “Lucia.” In the centre was the great catafalque, its outlines almost obscured by masses of flowers--lilies, roses, orchids, literally by tens of thousands--flanked by two Hebrew candelabra, surmounted by the bust of the impresario that had been presented to him, during his illness, by the members of the company.