AFTER THE PERFORMANCE.

The Inquisitive Child.  Uncle, which side won?

Uncle.  I suppose the side that advanced across the bridges.

Child.  Which side would have won if it had been a real battle?

Uncle.  I really couldn’t undertake to say, my boy.

Child.  But which do you think would have won?

Uncle.  I suppose the side that fought best.

Child.  But which side was that? (The Uncle begins to find that the society of an intelligent Nephew entails too severe a mental strain to be frequently cultivated.)

* * * * *

THE OPERA-GOER’S DIARY.

Monday 23.—­Operatic world all agog to hear, and to see, Le Prophete.  First appearance for many years.  Great things expected of JEAN DE RESZKE as Jean of Leyden, and Mlle. RICHARD as Fides.  Great expectations not disappointed.  Scene in Cathedral magnificent as a spectacle.  But scene in Cathedral between JEAN and his unhappy mother still grander as acting. Le Prophete is remarkable too, as being an Opera without Mlle. BAUERMEISTER in it.  Skating scene, with a nice ballet, rather a frost.  “Not sufficient go in it,” observes veteran Opera-goer, with book in his hand, dated eighteen hundred and sixty something, containing a cast of characters which, he says, though he doesn’t show me the book, comprises the names of MARIO, GRISI, VIARDOT-GARCIA, and HERR FORMES.  A more veterany veteran tells me that GRISI and VIARDOT never played together in this, but that GRISI succeeded VIARDOT as Fides.

[Illustration:  MONDAY, JUNE 23.

Jean de Reszke as Jean of Leyden.  Jeanne The Risky as Sarah d’Arc.]

Even the veteran is pleased, and acknowledges that thirty years ago they couldn’t have done it as they do now, barring the skating scene, where, he insists upon it, the original “go” is wanting.  The fact is, we have long passed the days when “rinking” was a novelty on the stage or off it.  But what a jolly lot these Anabaptists were!  They enjoyed themselves with their dancing-girls and their picnicking on the ice.  Substitute General BOOTH for Jean of Leyden, and the tambourine girls for PALLADINO and the ballet, and then you have a modern version of Le Prophete.

[Illustration:  Mlle. Richard as Fides,—­not Boney Fides.]

Delightful to see M. MIRANDA as one of the three Anabaptists, Mathisen (a good name in the city, with only a letter changed), striking a sixteenth century flint, for the purpose of lighting a candle, but, failing in the attempt, compelled to destroy sixteenth-century illusion, and employ, in a sneaking kind of way, the nineteenth-century match, which strikes only on its own box.  Mlle. NUOVINA, not so good here as in the part of Marguerite, but there is very little for a soprano to do.  JEAN reckless in the final drinking song.