After the death of Dr. Damrosch the directors of the Metropolitan sent Edmund C. Stanton and Walter Damrosch to Europe to organize a company for a second season of German opera. The result was perhaps the finest operatic organization New York had yet seen. It included Lilli Lehmann, the greatest of all Wagnerian sopranos; Marianne Brandt, Emil Fischer, the inimitable 'Hans Sachs,' Auguste Seidl-Krauss, and Max Alvary, who set the matinee-idol fashion in operatic tenors. Anton Seidl was conductor and Walter Damrosch assistant conductor. The operas produced were Wagner's _Lohengrin_, _Die Walküre_, _Tannhäuser_, _Die Meistersinger_, and _Rienzi_, Meyerbeer's _Der Prophet_, Bizet's _Carmen_, Gounod's _Faust_, and Goldmark's _Die Königin von Saba_. In the fall of 1885 there was a short season at the Academy of Music by the Angelo Grand Italian Opera Company. Angelo was a graduate of the luggage department of Mapleson's organization. His season lasted two weeks, during which he presented Verdi's _Luisa Miller_, _I Lombardi_, _Un Ballo in Maschera_, and _I due Foscari_, as well as Petrella's _Ione_. The American Opera Company, in the meantime, had been reorganized as the National Opera Company, which, still under the directorship of Theodore Thomas, gave performances in English at the Academy, the Metropolitan, and in Brooklyn. Among the interesting features of their program were Rubinstein's _Nero_, Goetz's _Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung_, Delibes' _Lakmé_, and a number of ballets, including Delibes' _Coppelia_. In the spring of 1887 Madame Patti appeared at the Metropolitan in a 'farewell' series of six operas under the management of Henry E. Abbey. She continued to make 'farewell' appearances for over twenty years. The most notable features of the Metropolitan season of 1886-87 were the productions of Wagner's _Tristan und Isolde_, Beethoven's _Fidelio_, Goldmark's _Merlin_, and Brüll's _Das goldene Kreuz_. Notable, also, was the appearance of Albert Niemann, histrionically the greatest of all Tristans.[49] The season of 1887-88 saw the production of Wagner's _Siegfried_ and _Götterdämmerung_, besides Nessler's _Der Trompeter von Säkkingen_, Weber's Euryanthe, and Spontini's _Ferdinand Cortez_. There were two consecutive representations of the entire _Ring des Nibelungen_ during the season of 1888-89, the only novelty being _Das Rheingold_. _Der fliegende Holländer_, _Un Ballo in Maschera_, _Norma_, and Cornelius's _Der Barbier von Bagdad_ were added to the list in his season of 1889-90.