That evening I realized the appositeness of Dr. von Bulow’s remark to Mascagni when the world seemed inclined to hail that young man as the continuator of Verdi’s operatic evangel:  “I have found your successor in your predecessor, Verdi,” but it did not seem necessary to think of “Otello” and “Falstaff” in connection with the utterance; “La Traviata” alone justifies it.  Also it was made plain what Verdi meant, when after the first performance of his opera, and its monumental fiasco, he reproached his singers with want of understanding of his music.  The story of that fiasco and the origin of the opera deserve a place here.  “La Traviata,” as all the world knows, is based upon the book and drama, “La Dame aux Camelias,” by the younger Dumas, known to Americans and Englishmen as “Camille.”  The original book appeared in 1848, the play in 1852.  Verdi witnessed a performance of the play when it was new.  He was writing “Il Trovatore” at the time, but the drama took so strong a hold upon him that he made up his mind at once to turn it into an opera.  As was his custom, he drafted a plan of the work, and this he sent to Piave, who for a long time had been his librettist in ordinary.  Francesco Maria Piave was little more than a hack-writer of verse, but he knew how to put Verdi’s ideas into practicable shape, and he deserves to be remembered with kindly interest as the great composer’s collaborator in the creation of “I due Foscari,” “Ernani,” “Macbetto,” “Il Corsaro,” “Stiffclio,” “Simon Boccanegra,” “Aroldo” (a version of “Stiffelio"), and “La Forza del Destino.”  His artistic relations with Verdi lasted from 1844 to 1862, but the friendship of the men endured till the distressful end of Piave’s life, which came in 1876.  He was born three years earlier than Verdi (in 1810), in Durano, of which town his father had been the last podesta under the Venetian republic.  He went mad some years before he died, and thenceforward lived off Verdi’s bounty, the warm-hearted composer not only giving him a pension, but also caring for his daughter after his death.  In 1853 Verdi’s creative genius was at flood-tide.  Four months was the time which he usually devoted to the composition of an opera, but he wrote “La Traviata” within four weeks, and much of the music was composed concurrently with that of “Il Trovatore.”  This is proved by the autograph, owned by his publishers, the Ricordis, and there is evidence of the association in fraternity of phrase in some of the uninteresting pages of the score. (See “Morro! la mia memoria” for instance, and the dance measures with their trills.) “Il Trovatore” was produced at Rome on January 19, 1853, and “La Traviata” on March 6 of the same year at the Fenice Theatre in Venice.  “Il Trovatore” was stupendously successful; “La Traviata” made a woful failure.  Verdi seems to have been fully cognizant of the causes which worked together to produce the fiasco, though he was disinclined at the time to discuss them.  Immediately after the first representation