Biachi was Mephistopheles. He was very good and sang the _Calf of Gold_ splendidly. Yet that solo, oddly enough, never "caught on" with our houses. Biachi was one of the few artists of my day who gave real thought and attention to the question of costuming. He took his general scheme of dress from _Robert le Diable_ and improved on it, and looked very well indeed. The woman he afterwards married was our contralto, a Miss Sulzer, an American, who made an excellent Siebel and considered her work seriously. At first everyone was stunned by the new treatment. In ordinary, accepted operatic form there were certain things to be expected;--_recitatives_, _andantes_, _arias_, choruses--all neatly laid out according to rule. In this everything was new, startling, overthrowing all traditions. About the middle of the evening some of my friends came behind the scenes to my dressing-room with blank faces. "Heavens, Louise," they exclaimed, "what do you do in this opera anyway? Everyone in the front of the house is asking 'where's the _prima donna_?'" Indeed, an opera in which the heroine has nothing to do until the third act might well have startled a public accustomed to the old Italian forms. However, I assured everyone: "Don't worry. You'll get more than enough of me before the end of the evening!" The house was not much stirred until the love scene. That was breathless. We felt more and more that we were beginning to "get them." There were no modern effects of lighting; but a calcium was thrown on me as I stood by the window, and I sang my very, very best. As Mazzoleni came up to the window and the curtain went down there was a dead silence. Not a hand for ten seconds. Ten seconds is a long time when one is waiting on the stage. Time and the clock itself seemed to stop as we stood there motionless and breathless. Maretzek had time to get through the little orchestra door and up on the stage before the applause came. We were standing as though paralysed, waiting. We saw Maretzek's pale, anxious face. The silence held a second longer; then-- The house came down. The thunders echoed and beat about our wondering ears. "Success!" gasped Maretzek, "success--success--_success_!"