But these fees are as nothing compared with those commanded by the leading singers of to-day, more especially in America, where money is poured out like water, and where artists are retained at high fees by one opera house, even if they do not sing a single note during the whole season, so that a rival house should not secure their services. It is not very unusual for a singer to receive £1,000 per performance in the twentieth century. Madame Patti has stated that she received £1,200 per night for two seasons of sixty nights each. Caruso has been paid £20,000 for eighty performances, and about £8,000 per annum for singing into gramophones; his contract for four years at £40,000 per annum with the New York Metropolitan is probably a record in this direction. Of course the amount received by those who compose the music never approximate to such figures as these. For _Don Juan_ Mozart received only 500 thalers, and for _Figaro_ 100 ducats. Weber’s payment for _Der Freischütz_ was 80 Friedrich d’ors, out of which he had to pay the librettist; after the treasury had netted 30,000 thalers from this work Weber was presented with another 100! There are, however, a few examples of fair bargains made by musicians: Spontini in 1814 was offered the then liberal salary of £750 per annum for two operas each year in Berlin; in 1819 he accepted a ten years’ engagement at the court of Frederick William III. of Berlin at a salary of 4,000 thalers, a benefit of 1,050 thalers, a free concert, and a pension. He was well treated, but did not himself behave very well, allowing his servant to sell free admissions to the theatre, and grumbling because his first-night presentations did not bring in as much as he wished. He finally ended by a demand for compensation for 46,850 thalers, and that in face of the fact that he was convicted of _lèse-majesté_ and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment: an indignity from which his new monarch graciously released him. [Sidenote: =Royalties=] Sometimes an agreement is made with the composer by which he receives a royalty or lump sum for each performance of his work. To the composer of an opera that takes the public fancy this spells fortune, and vast sums have now and again been made in this way. Isouard, for example, received for the performances of his _Cendrillon_ in Paris alone over 100,000 francs in 1810, while Rossini and others have by similar strokes of luck easily acquired wealth. So small, however, is the proportion of new works to-day which become popular, that the chances of such good fortune are very small; a _Cavalleria Rusticana_ only makes its appearance now and then, nor is the composer of such a work often able to repeat his success. [Sidenote: =Librettists=]