incurred upon vocalists. While therefore it can hardly be claimed for the Moody-Manners company that the exponents of the leading characters of the operas are singers of the first rank, there are compensating advantages in the greater artistic unanimity of the chorus-singing and acting, and of the general stage management. Another feature of the London performances has been the occasional adoption of a scheme of short illustrative lectures given before the curtain, as to the plot, music, and composer of the work about to be rendered. It is said that Mr. Manners loses money annually in London to gain it again in the provinces; he has certainly been courageous in taking Covent Garden and other large houses for long series of performances, some of _quasi_-novelties, which cannot have been financially successful. The repertoire contains some works of the first magnitude, and the main company gives very good performances. Other features of the scheme to be noticed are the prizes occasionally offered in public competition for new works, and a “school” attached to the company, and travelling with it, where young vocalists are trained and given opportunity for placing their abilities before the public. Besides the chief company, there are four other branches from the same parent stem travelling and performing in various parts of the world. Mr. Manners recently endeavoured to form an “Opera Union,” and some two thousand persons signed a form agreeing to support and take tickets for an English opera season in London; when, however, the scheme was ripe only a few hundred of these actually subscribed, and the idea had therefore to be relinquished. Mention must be made of the generous action of the music publishers, Messrs. Ricordi, who in 1905 offered a prize of £500 for the best English opera. This was gained by Dr. Edward Naylor of Cambridge for a work entitled _The Angelus_, staged and performed by the Royal Opera Syndicate on January 27th, 1909; the work had a poor reception, and was only played twice. Other schemes are frequently put before the public, and although in some cases they are too short-lived, and in others not of sufficiently high aim to call for special mention, there is no real lack of opportunity in England in the twentieth century of hearing opera fairly well done. No comparison with Continental standards can be made in the provinces, conditions being so different; but the opera season at Covent Garden can vie with all rivals, and there is a gradual increase throughout the country, both of persons capable of appreciation of operatic enterprise and of artistic perception, which will not allow of slipshod presentations or performances. [Sidenote: =The Outlook=]