_Monday, May 16._--Sound the trumpets, Beat the drums! All Hail to Sir DRURIOLANUS OPERATICUS, the most successful Knight of the Season! A brilliant audience in a brilliant house lighted by thousands of additional electric lights, acclaimed with rapture the awakening of Opera. _Philémon et Baucis_ began it, a work by GOUNOD (which is not intended for swearing) of great sweetness and light; and this was followed by PIETRO MASCAGNI's _Cavalleria Rusticana_, "Rustic Chivalry," which might be epigrammatically described as a "Clod-hoppera." _Philémon et Baucis_ is charming. M. MONTARIOL was a capital _Philémon_, and Mlle. SIGRID ARNOLDSEN as _Baucis_, a sort of classical Little Bo-peep, received a hearty welcome on her return to the Covent Garden House and Home. M. PLANÇON was the thoroughly French _Jupin_, and M. CASTELMARY an amiable _Vulcan_; both most accomplished Divines. Altogether, a perfect quartette. The graceful _intermezzo_ only escaped an _encore_ because the knowing ones among the gods and groundlings felt that too much enthusiasm at first might do serious damage to the subsequent reception of the great _intermezzo_ of the evening. All on _qui vive_ for great _intermezzo_. Anticipations of event heard in the lobbies. Anxiety depicted on some countenances, but most features looking happy and hopeful. The members of what was once known as "the Organising Committee" nod encouragingly to one another as they pass to and fro; the officials and _habitués_ exchange greetings without any expression of opinion. Sir DRURIOLANUS does not issue forth until the right moment, when he can shut up his opera-glass with a click, and give the word to Field-Marshal MANCINELLI to lead his men to the attack. For the present, "Wait" is the _mot d'ordre_, "and this," quoth a jig-maker, "is the only weight in the entire entertainment." [Illustration: The Good and Great Archbishop Druriolanus Coventgardenus giving his Chorus Flock permission to use Palms on Easter Sunday. Quite "the palmy days" of the Opera.] Up goes the Curtain, and those who remember the _Cavalleria_ as it was put on "in another place," to use parliamentary language, see at the first glance that this representation is going to be quite another pair of shoes. The stage management is admirable: not a second without movement, and every movement with a motive--musical or dramatic, or both. Madame CALVÉ's _Santuzza_ is operatically and histrionically--but especially the latter--a triumph; and "this is the verdict of us all." GIULIA RAVOGLI makes a great part of _Lola_; the many-talented little Mlle. BAUERMEISTER's _Lucia_ is not quite up to her own _Marta_ in _Faust_. As for the men, the singing and the acting of Signor DE LUCIA as _Turiddu_ (ye gods! what a name!), and of Mons. DUFRICHE as _Alfio_ cannot be surpassed.