By HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL, musical critic of the New York Tribune, author of “Music and Manners in the Classical Period,” “Studies in the Wagnerian Drama,” “How to Listen to Music,” etc.  With over 70 portraits and pictures of Opera Houses. 450 pp. 12mo. $3.00 net.

This is perhaps Mr. Krehbiel’s most important book.  The first seven chapters deal with the earliest operatic performances in New York.  Then follows a brilliant account of the first quarter-century of the Metropolitan, 1883-1908.  He tells how Abbey’s first disastrous Italian season was followed by seven seasons of German Opera under Leopold Damrosch and Stanton, how this was temporarily eclipsed by French and Italian, and then returned to dwell with them in harmony, thanks to Walter Damrosch’s brilliant crusade,—­also of the burning of the opera house, the vicissitudes of the American Opera Company, the coming and passing of Grau and Conried, and finally the opening of Oscar Hammerstein’s Manhattan Opera House and the first two seasons therein, 1906-08.

      “Presented not only in a readable manner but without bias ...
      extremely interesting and valuable.”—­Nation.

     “The illustrations are a true embellishment ...  Mr. Krehbiel’s
     style was never more charming.  It is a delight.”—­Philip Hale in
     Boston Herald.

“Invaluable for purpose of reference ... rich in critical passages ... all the great singers of the world have been heard here.  Most of the great conductors have come to our shores....  Memories of them which serve to humanize, as it were, his analyses of their work.”—­New York Tribune.

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HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK