Talking with me about the first performance of this opera, Belasco said: “It was a great night for me, and I took unbounded pleasure in it and felt much honored when I found myself taking curtain calls with the author, Toscanini, Gatti-Casazza, Caruso, Miss Destinn, and the rest. Puccini, as always, was simple and frankly demonstrative in his delight. The singers were all wild with enthusiasm--I was never so much be-kissed in my life!--but I think I was, perhaps, most interested in that wonderful man Arturo Toscanini. He seemed to me one of those self-contained fellows--calm on the surface but burning white-hot inside. To me it was thrilling to watch him conduct, and he did so at that first performance without a score, as though the work were a classic long familiar to him and held in memory.” Belasco’s labor on the production of “La Fanciulla” was wholly one of love, as he declined to accept any payment for all his arduous work at rehearsals. In the programme of the first performance appeared a notice saying: “The Metropolitan Opera Company desires to make public acknowledgment of its indebtedness, and to express its cordial thanks, to Mr. David Belasco for his most valuable and kind assistance in the stage production of ‘The Girl of the Golden West.’” And among his most cherished possessions is a sumptuous album containing signed portraits of all the principal singers who participated in the opera, as well as of Puccini, Toscanini, and Gatti-Casazza, together with an exquisitely illuminated copy of the programme on vellum and an appreciative inscription, also illuminated on vellum. This gracious token was taken to Belasco’s studio and delivered to him by a committee, representing the opera company, composed of Messrs. Otto Kahn, Henry Rogers Winthrop, Robert Goelet, and John Brown. BELASCO AND THE MESSRS. SHUBERT. An incident of Belasco’s career in management which can conveniently be recorded here is his alliance with the Messrs. Shubert. That alliance was arranged in 1904-’05, when Belasco was in active conflict with the Theatrical Syndicate, by the late S. S. Shubert, of whom and of their business association he writes: “I found him an earnest young man, with the power to make friends and possessed of an irrepressible enthusiasm.” Shubert, with two brothers, began theatre management (or, rather, correctly speaking, theatre control) in Syracuse, New York, where they leased the Bastable Theatre. They subsequently obtained control of the Herald Square Theatre in New York, and then, directly or indirectly, of many other theatres in various cities of the country, especially in the smaller places which are known as “the one-night stands.” “You have attractions and a reputation,” urged Shubert, addressing Belasco, “but no theatres out of New York: we have theatres but lack attractions and reputation. Join us, and all our out-of-town houses shall be at your disposal.” The arrangement