The dignity of American artists lay in very incompetent hands--incompetent as far as the dignity of American art was concerned. The commodious new Academy was leased to Max Maretzek, who sub-leased it to J. H. Hackett, and it was opened in October, 1854, with a company headed by Grisi and Mario. The showman exploitation of great artists existed long before P. T. Barnum exhibited Jenny Lind. The appearances of Henrietta Sontag at Niblo's in _La fille du régiment_ in 1850 and of Grisi and Mario at Castle Garden in 1854 were purely and simply showman enterprises. In January, 1855, Ole Bull, the Norwegian violinist, took over the management of the Academy, with the earnest intention of carrying out the high purposes for which it was founded. As a first step to that end he offered a prize of one thousand dollars for the 'best original grand opera, by an American composer, and upon a strictly American subject.' The phrase has become almost a formula. It is unfortunate that idealistic enterprises in America always seek to fly before they can walk. There was no American composer capable of writing an original grand opera on any subject, neither was there a public opinion cultivated enough to support such an enterprise as the Academy. Within two months of Ole Bull's announcement, 'in consequence of insuperable difficulties,' the Academy was forced to close and the original grand opera by an American composer never saw the light. The season was completed by the Lagrange company from Niblo's, managed by a committee of stockholders, with Maretzek as conductor. III A bright rift in the cloud that hung over operatic New York at that time was the coming to Niblo's in 1855 of a German company, with Mlle. Lehman (not, of course, the more famous Lilli Lehmann) as star. Among the operas presented were Flotow's 'Martha,' Weber's _Der Freischütz_, and Lortzing's _Czar und Zimmermann_. In the following year the German company added Mme. Johannsen to its forces, with Carl Bergmann as conductor, and presented, among other operas, Beethoven's _Fidelio_. Bergmann remained as conductor for several years and did an amount of pioneer work for German opera in New York the importance of which has been curiously ignored. It may be mentioned here, though a little in advance of our narrative, that he introduced Wagner's _Tannhäuser_ for the first time in America at the Stadt Theatre, New York, in 1859. The chorus was supplied by the Arion Männergesangverein.[44]