A highly interesting account of the rehearsals of Meyerbeer's _Robert le Diable_--one of the typical works of the modern repertoire of grand opera--is given, in his "Mémoires d'un Bourgeois de Paris," by Dr. Véron, for some time manager of the Opera House. "It was not," he tells us, "until after four months of orchestral and other rehearsals that the general rehearsals were reached. These latter," he continues, "caused great fatigue and great excitement to everyone; to the composer, the singers, the chiefs of department, and the manager. When a general rehearsal takes place, with choruses, principal singers, and full orchestra, but without scenery, without costumes, and without full light, the musical execution gains much and produces always a great effect. In the darkness and silence of the empty and more sonorous house, without any distraction for the other senses, one is, so to say, all ears; nothing is lost of the fine shades of expression in the singing, of the delicate embroideries of the orchestration. But at the first representation the disappointment is great. In the immense, splendidly lighted theatre, filled with an excited crowd, all the rich and elegant details of the score will be lost through the stuff of the women's dresses and the diminished sonority of a building crowded in pit, boxes, and gallery. Great musical ideas, grand orchestral effects, will now alone produce an impression. Thus it happened that at the first representation of _Robert the Devil_, the public, after applauding the first two acts, was only impressed and deeply moved by the chorus of demons." [Illustration: EASTERN PAVILION, OPERA HOUSE.] After describing the anxieties and perplexities which throughout the long series of rehearsals harass the unfortunate director, Dr. Véron proceeds to tell us how this gentleman's last and worst experience was this inevitable final conference, held in his own private room, at which the author of the words and the composer of the music had to be prevailed upon to accept some necessary "cuts." [Illustration: THE PUBLIC FOYER, OPERA HOUSE.]