Winkelmann, and Scaria--for a number of festival concerts. The
extraordinary success of these concerts seemed to indicate that the
time was ripe for a complete theatrical production of Wagner's later
music-dramas, and Mr. Thomas was already elaborating his plans when an
accident frustrated them and took the whole matter out of his hands.

This accident was the signal failure of Italian opera at the
Metropolitan Opera House during the first season of its existence. As
Mr. Abbey lost over a quarter of a million dollars by this disaster,
no other manager could be found willing to take his place and risk
another fortune. Since Mr. Abbey's company included several of the
most popular artists--Nilsson, Sembrich, Scalchi, Campanini, Del
Puente, etc., and his repertory embraced the usual popular operas, the
conclusion seemed inevitable that the public wanted a complete change.
Dr. Damrosch was accordingly appealed to at the eleventh hour, and he
hastened to Germany and brought over a company that scored an
immediate success, surprising even to those who had long advocated the
establishment of a German opera in New York. And this success became
still more pronounced in the following seasons, when a better company
was secured, with Herr Seidl as conductor.

Perhaps it is fortunate that Mr. Thomas's project was never realized.
Had he succeeded, New York and several other cities would no doubt
have enjoyed a series of interesting Wagner performances for one or
two seasons; but after the first curiosity had been satisfied, it is
very likely that the enterprise would have come to an end for lack of
funds. For it is a well-established fact that grand opera, if given
with the best singers, artistic scenery, and an orchestra of sixty to
one hundred men, cannot be made self-supporting, however generously
the public may contribute to it. The Paris opera is kept afloat by
means of an annual subsidy of eight hundred thousand francs, and the
imperial opera-houses of Berlin and Vienna, although similarly
endowed, are burdened with large annual deficits which have to be
covered by additional contributions from the imperial exchequers. New
York can hardly claim so large a public interested in high-class opera
as Vienna and Berlin; hence it would be unreasonable to expect that
grand opera should fare better here. It was, therefore, one of the
most lucky accidents in the history of American music that the
Metropolitan Opera House was built, in