The performance under my father included Madame Materna as _Brunhilde_, who had created the rôle in Bayreuth in ’76 and who was then at the very height of her glorious vocal powers; Madame Seidl-Kraus, an exquisite and pathetic _Sieglinde_; Anton Schott, a vigorous and highly dramatic _Siegmund_; and Staudigl as _Wotan_. Staudigl was a son of the famous old Viennese bass with whom he had studied, singing with such good results that he made as fine an impression in concert and oratorio as in opera. The first barytone was Adolf Robinson, who had begun his career with my father in Breslau and whose warm impassioned _bel canto_ won instant recognition here. There was no professional opera claque at the Metropolitan in those days such as is now maintained by some of the singers and conductors who, in rivalry with each other, foolishly spend their money in the hiring of twenty to fifty husky men, under a well-trained leader, who stand at the side of the balconies and family circle and clap with the machine-like regularity of a steel hammer in an iron foundry in order to produce so and so many recalls after an act. In those days this was not necessary. The public applauded wildly and shouted themselves hoarse of their own free will, and the papers almost unanimously pronounced the performances an artistic revolution, and said that such dramatic truth and ensemble work had but seldom before been presented in such a convincing way on the operatic stage of New York. During the entire winter I lived in a sea of excitement and of joy at seeing my father’s genius at last so universally recognized. But my anxiety was also very great. I was with him constantly, from morning until night, and could see that the labor of carrying everything entirely on his shoulders, the effort of organizing an artistic whole out of the many different elements, was overwhelming. The rehearsals often lasted all day and I do not think that I missed a rehearsal or a performance during the entire season. Sometimes I would timidly implore my father to put some of the work, especially the managerial part, on other shoulders, but he would not listen, saying that the responsibility was his and that he could not delegate what he conceived to be his solemn duty as one representing German art in a foreign country to any one else.