With the return of Abbey, Schoeffel, and Grau in 1891, Wagner virtually disappeared from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House as their entire energies were turned toward producing operas of the French-Italian School. It was a natural reaction from the seven years of opera in German and the pendulum swung far to the other side. A company of truly great singers had been assembled by the new managers; the audiences revelled in their _bel canto_, and as Abbey, Schoeffel, and Grau assumed the entire financial responsibility of the enterprise, the directors of the opera-house were also well satisfied. They had become tired of the growing deficits of the German opera. The head and controlling spirit of the firm was Henry Abbey, a magnificent and honorable gambler in “stars” whom he paid so liberally that, while he sometimes gained large profits, he many times lost more heavily. The chances of profit were too small and generally it was too much like the roulette tables at Monte Carlo, with the odds in favor of the stars. John Schoeffel was not much more than the hyphen between Abbey and Grau. I never could see that he did anything except, perhaps, arrange for the advertisements of the opera company when it visited Boston, where he lived as lessee of the Tremont Theatre. The actual direction of the opera season, the arranging of the repertoire, the engagement of the artists, and the handling of them was in the hands of Maurice Grau, who had developed into a first-class opera manager. He claimed but little knowledge of things artistic, but he was astute and had a real flair, up to a certain point, for giving the public what it wanted. He was honorable in his dealings with the artists and in a grudging way (which operatic artists often have) they liked him, although they tortured him incessantly. He used to sit in his office like a spider from morning until night, working out repertoires, quarrelling with the singers or placating them, and altogether having no interests in life beyond that—except, perhaps, the national game of poker, in which he and a small group of cronies used to indulge—and a great affection for his little daughter. With the exception of “Lohengrin,” which had sporadic performances in the Italian language, poor Wagner was virtually boycotted, and with my great adoration for him I chafed under this condition more and more.