AN OPERATIC PROJECT.--PETTY PERSECUTIONS.--AN ARREST FOR LIBEL. While demolition of the Republic Theatre and construction of its successor were in progress Belasco made an unsuccessful attempt to fulfil a purpose which he had cherished for several years,--the purpose, namely, to cause the writing of, and to produce, a series of true comic operas, American in theme but similar in character to the brilliant and delightful combinations of satire, melody, and fun which made famous the names of Gilbert and Sullivan. “I hoped,” he said, “to find a pair of American authors that could be developed into at least something like such a team as Gilbert and Sullivan, and for a while I thought I should succeed,--but it was too much to hope for.” As part of his plan for this operatic enterprise Belasco engaged the well-known singer Miss Lillian Russell, for whose talents he entertained high respect: “I _know_,” he has said to me, “that Lillian Russell could have done far finer things than ever she has done--and I wanted her to do them under my management.” Inability to obtain any musical play for Miss Russell’s use which was satisfactory to him finally compelled Belasco to release her from engagement and to abandon a project which, adequately performed, would have been of great benefit to our Stage. From the time when it became publicly known that Belasco had assumed the management of a theatre of his own, in New York, until 1909, when self-interest at last reopened to him the long closed theatres dominated by the Theatrical Syndicate, he was made the object of an almost continuous series of attacks, annoyances, and persecutions, often merely petty, sometimes extremely serious, the origin of which is not always demonstrable but the motive of which, unmistakably, was to defame, hamper, and injure him in his professional vocation. Thus, a few days before the opening of his new theatre he was accused in several newspaper diatribes of having “stolen” the services of three prominent actors,--namely Lillian Russell, Blanche Bates, and David Warfield,--then under engagement to him, from other theatrical managers, regardless of prior contracts. The dispute on this subject has been top-loftically described as a tempest in a teapot, but as the accusation is, in fact, one of most dishonorable and illegal conduct the entire refutation of it should be recorded. Miss Russell wrote about the matter as follows: “I am very proud to have it known that Mr. Belasco is to be my future manager, but it is doing him a great injustice to assert that he tried to get me away from other managers with whom I was under contract. He, emphatically, did nothing of the kind. Everything was done in the most amiable spirit among all concerned, and, as a matter of fact, he and I were brought together, in a business relation, entirely by outside parties.” From Miss Bates came a letter in which she said: