"Well, when I heard the house was to be built, I did think--I did think that some of the stockholders would remember what I had done for opera. Some of the old-timers, who used to go to the Academy of Music and Astor Place Opera House when I was manager there, I thought, would recollect what companies I gave them--Parodi, and Steffanone, and Marini, and Lorini, and Bettini, and Bertucca"--(how often I had heard him chant the list, counting off the singers on his chubby fingers!)--"and Truffi, and Benedetti, and Salvi. I thought somebody might remember this and the old man, and come to me and say, 'Max, you did a good deal for us once, let us do something for you now.' I didn't expect them to come and offer me the house, but I thought they might say this and add, 'Come, we'll make you head usher,' or, 'You may have the bar.' But nobody came, and I'm out of it completely."
Maretzek's managerial career continued at least until 1874; after that he conducted operas for others and did something toward the last in the way of teaching. It was seldom that one could get into a conversation with him but he could grow reminiscent, and, reverting to the olden time, begin tolling off the members of the companies which he had led to artistic victories and who had helped plunge him into financial defeat--"Parodi, and Steffanone, and Marini, and Bettini, and Lorini, and Bertucca," and so on. Poor Bertucca! Few of those who in later years saw Mme. Maretzek, portly and sedate, enter the orchestra at the Academy of Music and Metropolitan Opera House, and tune her harp while the audience was gathering in the gilded horseshoes above, recalled that she had been the sprightly and bewitching Bertucca of thirty years before.
I cannot recall that Maretzek ever grew bitter in discoursing on what once was and what might have been. He could be satirical and cutting, but his words were generally accompanied with a smile. His dominant mood and something of his style of expression are illustrated in his book, "Crotchets and Quavers, or Revelations of an Opera Manager in America," which he published in 1855, most obviously with the help of some literary hack who, I imagine, got the thoughts from Maretzek, but supplied the literary dress for them. A good many old scores are paid off in the book, and a good many grudges fed fat; but there are not many instances of bad humor. There is a sugar coating even to his malice. Shortly before I left Cincinnati, the College of Music of that city, having suffered a serious loss of prestige because of the resignation of Theodore Thomas, made a pretentious announcement of an operatic department, a practical school for opera, which was to be conducted by Maretzek. I think it was in the fall of 1880. At any rate, it was on the very eve of my departure from Cincinnati for New York. Maretzek came to the city somewhat late in the evening, and though I called upon him at the Burnet House as soon as I heard of his coming, he was already in bed when my card reached him. Nevertheless, I was asked up to his room. A tea tray still stood upon the table by the side of the bed when I entered. He held out his hand cordially and apologized for receiving me in bed. I told him that my newspaper, The Gazette, wanted to know, for the information of its readers, what he purposed doing at the college. The squabble between Mr. Thomas and the college authorities had kept the town in a ferment for months, all of which Maretzek seemed to know. It was no concern of his, but he could not help having artistic sympathies or predispositions, and these were obviously on the side of the musician Thomas, who had split with the business management of the college because of charlatanry in its methods. There was a merry twinkle in Maretzek's eyes as in reply to my question he answered: "I don't know what I am going to do, or what I'm here for. They made me an offer, and I came. I'm told that I am to run an opera school." Again he held out his hand at parting, and his last words were: