This resplendent institution was opened on November 18, 1833, under the joint management of da Ponte and the Chevalier Rivafinoli--the latter being, according to da Ponte, 'a daring, but imprudently daring, adventurer, whose failures in London and in Mexico and Carolina, were the sure forerunners of his failure in New York.' The season was advertised for forty nights, but there was a supplementary season of twenty-eight nights. In addition there were fifteen performances given in Philadelphia. Socially and artistically the season was a distinct success, but financially it was a failure. The operas performed were Rossini's _La gazza ladra_, _Il barbiere di Siviglia_, _La donna del lago_, _Il Turco in Italia_, _Cenerentola_ and _Matilda di Shabran_, Cimarosa's _Il matrimonio segreto_, Paccini's _Gli Arabi nelli Gallie_, and an opera called _La casa di Pendere_, by the conductor, Salvioni. During the same season there was also a period of English opera at the Park Theatre, where 'Cinderella,' 'The Barber of Seville,' 'The Marriage of Figaro,' 'Artaxerxes,' 'Masaniello,' 'John of Paris,' 'Robert the Devil' (adapted and arranged), and other works were produced with Mr. and Mrs. Wood as principal singers. 'The house,' according to the 'American Musical Journal,' 'was crowded nightly.' The management of the Park Theatre certainly presented a much more varied and catholic program than was furnished by the Italian Opera House; but we suspect shrewdly that variety was its chief distinction. When Rivafinoli's enterprise collapsed, the Italian Opera House was taken over by Porto and Sacchi--the latter treasurer and the former one of the singers of the Rivafinoli company. The season opened on November 10, 1834, with Bellini's _La Straniera_, and during its short life Rossini's _Eduardo e Christina_, _L'Inganno felice_, _L'Assedio di Corinto_, and _Mosé in Egitto_ were also produced. It collapsed with the sudden disappearance of the _prima donna_, Signora Fanti. The Signora's defection, however, was rather the occasion than the cause of its untimely end. One is tempted to say that the Italian Opera House suffered from too much Rossini. But the real secret of its failure lay in the fact that it was not in the fashionable section of the city. The lure of art, reinforced by rich silk ornaments and paintings in fresco, by 'superb classical designs' and 'exceedingly commodious' sofa seats did not prove sufficiently strong to draw society from the strictly defined path of its appointed orbit. The valorous old da Ponte pleaded eloquently, but in vain. _Abyssus abyssum invocat_, as he truly complained. II