* * * * * OPERATIC NOTES. _Monday_ memorable for MELBA. Never sang better than as mad-as-a-hatter heroine of DONIZETTI'S _Lucia di Lammermoor_. Three hearty, deafening, unanimous encores for the brilliant fireworky Hanwellian vocalisation in LUCY'S (not "H. W. LUCY'S," of the _D. N._, but Miss LUCIA'S) great _de lunatico inquirendo_ scena. After encore, inevitable gigantic basket of flowers handed up to triumphant cantatrice by Beaming BEVIGNANI and talented assistants in orchestra. Conductor and musicians ought not to be used as agents for delivery of bouquets to _prime donne_. If somebody among audience wishes to publicly present singer with floral testimonial, why not let that Somebody step forward (as the person in church who would "forbid the banns" is invited to do) and hand it to her himself on a stick? Or if he be in some other part of the house, DULCISSIMUS DRURIOLANUS would himself introduce him and his basket of flowers on to, and off, the stage. The encores and the floral testimonial quite turned mad heroine's head. [Illustration: alvé à la "'Ria."] That is, so turned it round again that she became quite sane and chatted amicably with two or three of the leading chorus "up stage" until it suddenly occurred to her that she must go mad again, which she did at once, most effectively. After this "_Fra poco_," the swan-like (if swan a tenor) death-song of _Edgardo_, cannot go for its value unless sung by a most popular and highly-gifted tenor. So it stands to the credit of Signor DASH-MY-VIGNAS that, in this, he was enthusiastically applauded, and soon after "laid him down and dee'd" in the midst of an admiring and more-or-less sympathetic Chorus. Great opera for Chorus giving expression to their feelings. How they cry or laugh, and point and gesticulate and threaten and sympathise as guests in low dresses without anything distinctively Scotch about them, except in the case of one lady over whose shoulder I fancy I detected a tartan scarf of clannish pattern. _Normanno_, played by, I think, IGINIO CORSI (which name, in compliment to the national Scotch liquor, ought to have been changed to "IWISKIO CORSI"), bore remarkable resemblance to Markis o' SALISBURY. I do not remember ever having seen or heard Lord SALISBURY as a vocalist. To be remembered as _The_ MELBA Night of the Season--up to now.