After a long consultation with my wife we both decided that the conditions under which I had worked that disastrous winter were not normal, and that we could well risk another season. Two factors influenced me greatly in this decision: one, that a group of Philadelphia citizens had come forward and desired me to consider their Academy of Music as my artistic home, and said that they would give every possible assistance to a regular season there, and the other was that Abbey and Grau frankly confessed to me that they had made a mistake in not accepting my offer of a combination. They had not been fortunate in the choice of their German singers and had lost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on their German operas, which was nearly four times as much as I had lost. Grau suggested for the following season an interchange of certain artists, and if I would occasionally lend him Madame Klafsky, whom he admired greatly, he would in turn give me Madame Calvé for a few performances of “Carmen.” This arrangement seemed admirable to me, as I was beginning to feel that Wagner opera alone was not sufficient to give a well-balanced opera season, and that for a longer season Philadelphia would demand a more varied repertoire. For the following season of 1897-98 affairs moved much easier for me. The Philadelphia committee gave me a guarantee for a regular opera season at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. This assured me a home and a permanent place for my large store of scenery, costumes, and properties. Rehearsals also were thus made easier and, for my New York season in the spring, Abbey and Grau again rented the Metropolitan Opera House to me. I had re-engaged Madame Klafsky, but to our great sorrow she died, and the problem of finding a successor was a serious one. Madame Gadski, who had charmed our audiences with _Elsa_, _Elizabeth_, and _Sieglinde_, was rather young for the heavy dramatic rôles, although I had begun to train her in the “Walküre” and “Siegfried” _Brunhildes_. I began negotiations with Lilli Lehmann and was successful in obtaining her wonderful services for the following year—but of this I have written in detail in another chapter. The financial results of this season were quite satisfactory, but I was beginning to chafe more and more under the unsympathetic task of manager. To rehearse singers and orchestra from morning until night was a pleasure, because there was an artistic ideal to be achieved and because there were all manner of musical difficulties to be overcome. That was part of my work as a musician and conductor, and the fatigues and worries connected with this were easily endured. But the managerial duties annoyed me, and the constant intrigues among the singers, directed sometimes against each other and at other times against the management, often seemed to me unbearable.