A leading journal, in giving a review of the Opera Festival, said:-- "The Great Operatic Festival is now over, and only the memories of its magnificence and importance are left. The last note has been sung at the Chicago Operatic Festival, without doubt the greatest musical undertaking that has ever been accomplished anywhere. In no great city of Europe or America could 190,000 people have been able to attend the opera in two weeks. In the first place, the accommodations of even the largest Opera-houses are not such that 10,000 people could be present at any one performance. The Operatic Festival Association have been untiring in their earnest endeavours to present all the operas in the best possible manner. Each performance has been given as announced, and the casts have been uniformly good. Thirteen operas have been produced, all of which were mounted in a manner never before equalled. Many of the stage pictures, as in _Semiramide_, _Mirella_, _L'Africaine_, _Aida_, and _Faust_, have been simply superb, and will be long remembered for their beauty. The pictorial charm of the scene on the banks of the Nile in _Aida_ was also most poetic. The processions, and the way in which they were controlled, indicated that the stage manager was a man of taste and ability." Prior to my departure, 18th April, 1885, my attendance was requested by the Mayor, Mr. Carter H. Harrison, at the City Hall, when I was amply repaid for all the labour I had bestowed upon the Festival by the magnificent presentation which was then made me, and which I value more than anything of the kind I have ever received. It was nothing less than the freedom of the City of Chicago--a compliment I can say with safety that has never been paid to any other Englishman, and what is more, is never likely to be. Chicago, as everyone at all connected with America must know, will within a very few years be the first city in the United States, and probably in the world. The success of the Chicago Festival was due in a great measure to the personal efforts of Ferdinand W. Peck, the President, from whom I immediately afterwards received a notification to attend the final committee meeting, when the following testimonial was presented to me, magnificently engrossed on parchment:-- At a Meeting of the CHICAGO OPERA FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION held April 18th, 1885, The following Resolution was unanimously adopted: Resolved That the Chicago Opera Festival Association Recognizes the satisfactory manner in which COLONEL JAMES HENRY MAPLESON has fulfilled his obligations under his contract with this Association, And they desire to express their high appreciation of his liberality in the presentation of all the operas produced, without which the grand success of the FESTIVAL