Operatic performances began at the new house on October 22, 1883, and after sixty-one representations, at which nineteen operas were produced, the first season came to an end. I shall tell the story of the season in greater detail in the next chapter, contenting myself for the present with an account of the results of the merry war which ensued between the rival establishments. Colonel Mapleson was intrenched in the Academy of Music, which opened its doors for its regular season on the same evening. The advantage lay with Mr. Henry E. Abbey, who had a new house, the fruit of an old longing, and the realization of long cherished social aspirations. With the Academy of Music there rested the charm of ancient tradition, more potent then than it has ever been since, and the strength of conservatism. There were stars of rare refulgence in both constellations, which met the Biblical description in differing one from another in their glory. With Colonel Mapleson was Mme. Adelina Patti, who, in so far as she was an exponent of the art of beautiful vocalization, was without a peer the whole world over. She served then to keep alive the old traditions of Italian song as Mme. Sembrich does now. At her side stood Mme. Etelka Gerster, with a voice youthful, fresh, limpid, and wondrously flexible, and a style that was ripening in a manner that promised soon to compass all the requirements of the Italian stage from the sentimental characters in which she won her first successes to the deeper tragic parts which had begun to make appeal to her ambition. With Mr. Abbey was Mme. Christine Nilsson. Mme. Patti, though she had grown to womanhood and effected her entrance on the operatic as well as concert stage in New York, was not so familiar a figure as Mme. Nilsson. Patti had begun her operatic career at the Academy of Music in 1859, and had gone to Europe, where she remained without revisiting her old home until the fall or winter of 1881, when she came on a concert trip. The trip was more or less a failure, the public not yet being prepared to pay ten dollars for a reserved seat to hear anybody sing. After singing at a concert for the benefit of the sufferers from forest fires in Michigan, she announced a reduction of prices to two dollars for general admission, and five dollars for reserved seats. Under these conditions business improved somewhat, but in February, 1882, she found it necessary to organize an opera company in order to awaken interest fairly commensurate with her great merit and fame. It was a sorry company, and the performances, only a few, took place in the Germania Theater, on Broadway, at Thirteenth Street, formerly Wallack's; but they were received with much enthusiasm. So far as London was concerned, she was under engagement at the time to Mr. Gye, Colonel Mapleson's rival at Covent Garden. Mr. Abbey claimed that he had an option on any American engagement for opera, but she appeared next season at the Academy, and the doughty English manager held her as his trump card in the battle royal which ensued on the opening of the Metropolitan.