"_Fra Diavolo_, as presented at the Academy last evening, was by far the most enjoyable performance given by Mr. Mapleson's Company for a long time. There was an element of brightness and buoyancy in the acting and singing of all the principals that admirably reflected the spirit of Auber's brilliant and tuneful score. Next Monday, when the season of German Opera opens at the Metropolitan with _Lohengrin_, there will be doubtless hundreds who will be unable to secure seats. All such we earnestly advise to proceed straight to the Academy next Monday, where _Fra Diavolo_ will be repeated; not only because they cannot fail to enjoy this performance, since it is an entertaining opera entertainingly interpreted, but because Mr. Mapleson ought to be encouraged, when he undertakes to vary his old repertory.... Ravelli sang admirably last evening, and so did Fohström, who acted her part with much grace and dainty _naïveté_. Lablache, Del Puente, and Cherubini were unusually good and amusing. The Academy, we repeat, ought to be crowded on Monday next." The production of _Fra Diavolo_ gave great satisfaction. Meanwhile, I made another attempt to continue my rehearsals of _Manon_. Not only was I excluded from the stage by the hammering and knocking of this new Anglo-German Opera Company, but they turned one of the corners of the foyer into a kind of business office, where their chatterings greatly interrupted my rehearsals with pianoforte. These, at least, I thought, might be managed within the theatre. On ordering an orchestral rehearsal at Steinway Hall the following morning I was surprised to find that Mr. Thomas and his orchestra had actually gone there before me; and I had to dismiss my principal singers, chorus, and orchestra for a couple of hours, when with difficulty I was enabled to make a short rehearsal. This went on day after day much to my annoyance. The Directors now began troubling me to pay the rent; to which I replied that I would willingly do so as soon as they performed their portion of the contract by allowing me to rehearse. About this time I was challenged to meet the Rev. H. Haweis, author of _Music and Morals_, in a discussion on Wagner to be held at the Nineteenth Century Club, at which a great number of the fashionables of New York were present. After a brief introductory address, Mr. Courtlaudt Palmer, President of the Club, introduced the Rev. Mr. Haweis. His paper was a running series of anecdotes about Wagner, many of them keeping the audience in a continual laugh. He then made an onslaught on Italian Opera, assuring the audience that its days were numbered, that Wagner for the future was the one composer of dramatic music, and that every support should be given to his works now being represented at the Metropolitan Opera-house.