She had scarcely said this than her voice sounded magically, dazzlingly, in the aria, "Queen of the Night," from the _Magic Flute_. What a fascinating voice! It ranged from low G to the counter G--three octaves--in full strength and in pianissimo. I was astounded, stupefied, subjugated! When such voices occur, it is fortunate that they have the theater in which to display themselves; the world is their domain. I ought to say that I had recognized in that future artiste, together with the rarity of that organ, intelligence, a flame, a personality which were reflected luminously in her admirable face. All these qualities are of first importance on the stage. The next morning I hurried to my publisher's to tell him about the enthusiasm I had felt the previous evening. I found Hartmann preoccupied. "It concerns an artist, right enough," he said. "I want to talk about something else and ask you, yes or no, whether you will write the music for the work which has just been brought me." And he added, "It is urgent, for the music is wanted for the opening of the Universal Exposition which takes place two years from now, in May, 1889." I took the manuscript and I had scarcely run through a scene or two than I cried in an outburst of deep conviction, "I have the artiste for this part. I have the artiste. I heard her yesterday! She is Mlle. Sibyl Sanderson! She shall create Esclarmonde, the heroine of the new opera you offer me." She was the ideal artiste for the romantic work in five acts by Alfred Blau and Louis de Gramont. The new director of the Opéra-Comique, who always showed me deference and perfect kindness, engaged Mlle. Sibyl Sanderson and accepted without discussion the salary we proposed. He left the ordering of the scenery and the costumes entirely to my discretion, and made me the absolute master and director of the decorators and costumers whom I was to guide in entire accordance with my ideas. If I was agreeably satisfied by this state of affairs, M. Paravey for his part could not but congratulate himself on the financial results from _Esclarmonde_. It is but just to add that it was brought out at the necessarily brilliant period of the Universal Exposition in 1889. The first performance was on May 14 of that year. The superb artists who figured on the bill with Sibyl Sanderson were Mm. Bouvet, Taskin, and Gibert. The work had been sung one hundred and one consecutive times in Paris when I learned that sometime since the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie at Brussels had engaged Sibyl Sanderson to create _Esclarmonde_ there. That meant her enforced disappearance from the stage of the Opéra-Comique, where she had triumphed for several months.