who was also made serviceable in the opera because Meyer, the stage-manager, knew that good acting, in comic operas, was frequently more effective than a good voice. It was necessary to fiddle his song-parts into his head before he came to rehearsals. Rothe (~Rocco~) was so inferior both as actor and singer, that his name is not to be found in any of the ordinary sources of Vienna theatrical history. One can well believe that very considerable difficulties attended the performance, as Treitschke states. His words, in a passage above cited, as well as certain expressions of Beethoven’s a few months later, indicate that the opera was hurriedly put upon the stage, and the inadequacy of the singers thus increased by the lack of sufficient rehearsals. Seyfried says, “I directed the study of the parts with all the singers according to his suggestions, also all the orchestral rehearsals, and personally conducted the performance.” In 1805 Seyfried was young, talented, ambitious, zealous, and nothing was wanting on his part to insure success. [Sidenote: INCIDENTS AT THE REHEARSALS] Speaking of the rehearsals recalls to mind one of those bursts of puerile wrath, which were passed over with a smile by some of Beethoven’s friends, but gave serious offense to others. Mähler remembered that at one of the general rehearsals the third bassoon was absent; at which Beethoven fretted and fumed. Lobkowitz, who was present, made light of the matter: two of the bassoons were present, said he, and the absence of the third could make no great difference. This so enraged the composer, that, as he passed the Lobkowitz Place, on his way home, he could not restrain the impulse to turn aside and shout in at the great door of the palace: “Lobkowitzian ass!” There were various stumbling-blocks in the vocal score of “Leonore.” Schindler on this point has some judicious remarks (in his third edition), and they are borne out by his record of conversations with Cherubini and Anna Milder. During his years of frequent intercourse with Beethoven and subsequently, “Leonore” was a work upon whose origin and failure he took much pains to inform himself, and its history as finally drawn up by him is much more satisfactory and correct than others of greater pretensions.