One turns with relief to contemporary opera in New Orleans. The preëminence of New Orleans as an operatic centre among American cities of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was as marked as that of New York has been in recent times, though its population was only a fraction of that possessed by New York, Philadelphia, or Boston. Of course, New Orleans really was not an American city and did not contain any considerable number of American residents until many years after the Louisiana Purchase. It was, in effect, a French provincial city with a metropolitan flavor due to its position as the head of a rich and important colony. When one remembers the notably gregarious instincts of Frenchmen and their intense and tenacious devotion to the homeland, it is easy to understand how in New Orleans they reproduced as far as possible the social and artistic conditions of Paris. The thoroughly French character of New Orleans and its life remained unchanged during the Spanish régime, and even the purchase effected no appreciable change until many years had passed. This was especially so at the opera, which even now remains a thoroughly French institution, and it has been said that until after the Civil War American visitors to the opera were very rare. Indeed, opera is a form of art which has always appealed less to native Americans than to foreign-born citizens. Information on the actual beginnings of opera in New Orleans are rather scanty, but we know that a regular troupe of French comedians and singers appeared there in 1791, and it is to be assumed that they presented operas of Grétry, Gluck, Dalayrac, Monsigny, and others, more or less efficiently. Opera, drama, and ballet in the best French manner were given at M. Croquet's Théâtre St. Philippe in 1808. Another theatre was built in St. Peter Street in 1810, and among the operas given there in that and the following year were Paesiello's 'Barber of Seville' and Zingarelli's 'Romeo and Juliet.' The arrival of John Davis in 1811 with a troupe from San Domingo marks one of the real epochs in American operatic activities. Davis built the Théâtre d'Orléans in 1813 and, when it was burned down four years later, he rebuilt it at a cost of $180,000. This new theatre was by far the finest and best appointed in America. Opera was given there three times a week by a regular opera company, and not by artists who combined opera with the spoken drama, as was customary elsewhere in America. After the death of John Davis his son Pierre conducted the theatre for twenty-five years. The glories of French opera in New Orleans during those years must await mention in a later chapter, but, remarkable as they were, they hardly surpassed the achievements of the elder Davis during a period when opera elsewhere in America offered little of interest or artistic importance. The works of Rossini, Mozart, Spontini, Méhul, Grétry, Gluck, and other