In 1878 Max Strakosch, with a company that included Clara Louise Kellogg and Annie Louise Cary, ignored the Academy of Music and settled down at the Booth Theatre. There he gave a season of three weeks, presenting _Aïda_, _La Traviata_, and _Il Trovatore_. The directors of the Academy, in the meantime, turned to Colonel James H. Mapleson, one of the most famous of operatic _impresarios_, who, as manager of Her Majesty's Theatre and of Drury Lane, London, had for some time been engaged in a lively operatic war with Frederick and Ernest Gye at Covent Garden. Mapleson was a most astute manager and a devoted protagonist of the 'star' system. During his first season in 1878-79 he brought over a brilliant company which included Minnie Hauck, Etelka Gerster, and Italo Campanini, with Luigi Arditi as conductor. His list of operas was less impressive. The only novelty was Bizet's _Carmen_. On the whole, the season was moderately successful and Mapleson made a contract with the stockholders of the Academy for the seasons of 1879-80, 1880-81, and 1881-82. Nothing occurred in any of those seasons which calls for special mention. They presented the same old list of operas in the same old way. Italian opera in New York was getting into a rut and was losing its hold on the people. The Academy was becoming more and more unsuited to the growing demands of New York Society. Everything was, in fact, ripe for the inauguration of a new epoch. IV It must be confessed that the evolution of opera in New York has been determined more by social than by artistic factors, and a history of New York society would be almost a necessary background for a complete narrative of its operatic development. Here it is necessary to mention that the Vanderbilt ball of 1882 marked the culmination of a social revolution in New York. During the early years of the nineteenth century there was an absolute ascendancy of that social element which is known by the name of Knickerbocker. It was composed, in the main, of old families with certain undeniable claims to birth, breeding, and culture. They constituted a caste which was not without distinction. But about 1840, with the rapid material development of the country, began the influx of a new element armed for assault on the social citadel with the powerful artillery of wealth. Gradually this new element widened a breach in the rampart of exclusiveness which the Knickerbocker caste had built around itself, and at the above-mentioned Vanderbilt ball the citadel finally surrendered. The effect on the operatic situation was immediate. There was not sufficient accommodation in the Academy for the newly amalgamated forces, and a box at the opera was, of course, a necessary badge of social distinction. Consequently, in 1883, the Metropolitan Opera House Company (Limited) was formed by a number of very prominent gentlemen for a purpose sufficiently indicated by its title. The very prominent