Political feeling has probably never run so high over operatic matters as it did in Paris after the Franco-German war: for years no German work was tolerated, at any rate so far as new matter was concerned, and the determination of the management to produce Wagner’s _Lohengrin_ in 1891 was the signal for a riotous uproar. Public feeling ran high; some of the leading singers, considering discretion the better part of valour, caused frequent postponements of the performance by means of convenient indispositions, and when the work actually came to presentation cordons of police were called out to guard the opera house, both inside and out. M. Lamoureux, who conducted, did so with a pistol in his pocket. Opposition inside the theatre made itself felt by an objectionable device of setting floating in the auditorium little balloons of evil-smelling gas; while opposition in the street was met by cavalry charges and frequent arrests. The whole occasion was made one of political import, but fortunately commonsense prevailed, and no serious issues resulted; happily for opera, such scenes as these are infrequent and unusual. In our country opera has little or no connection with political matters, except that when some foreign potentate visits our shores, a gala performance at Covent Garden is usually arranged as one of the features of his visit: so far as English art or English artists are concerned, there is, unfortunately, little use made of either on these occasions. [Sidenote: =Opera non-lucrative to the Composer=] Opera is not a fortune-making business for the majority of those who embark on such enterprise: so far as the composition of opera is concerned, financial result is usually very small. Nowadays an opera cannot be lightly tossed off in a few days: it is true that Handel composed _Rinaldo_ in fourteen days, Rossini _Il Barbiere_ in thirteen (a wonderful performance), and Pacini his _Saffo_ in four weeks; but these are very exceptional instances, and may fitly be compared with the labour of Wagner, who had the _Meistersinger_ and the _Ring_ on hand for something like twenty years. Modern opera, with its polyphonic orchestral background and amorphous movements, demands years of work, and for the majority of those who give so much of their lives to it there is little to show in return, so far as a monetary point of view is taken. Operatic management, too, is very speculative; Handel lost his whole fortune (£10,000) and became bankrupt through his operatic ventures, and yet his works had enormous success in their day. It is to be feared that the example set by him has been followed by many a subsequent manager, and is yet in store for many another.