I possessed of helping the singers and of making them, in spite of much uncertainty, seem to flow smoothly onwards, was clearly demonstrated in our orchestral rehearsals, in which, by dint of constant prompting, loud singing with the performers and vigorous directions as to necessary action, I got the whole thing to run so easily that it seemed quite possible that the performance might be a reasonable success after all.  Unfortunately, we did not consider that in front of the public all these drastic methods of moving the dramatic and musical machinery would be restricted to the movements of my baton and to my facial expression.  As a matter of fact the singers, and especially the men, were so extraordinarily uncertain that from beginning to end their embarrassment crippled the effectiveness of every one of their parts.  Freimuller, the tenor, whose memory was most defective, sought to patch up the lively and emotional character of his badly learned rule of the madcap Luzio by means of routine work learned in Fra Diavolo and Zampa, and especially by the aid of an enormously thick, brightly coloured and fluttering plume of feathers.  Consequently, as the directors failed to have the book of words printed in time, it was impossible to blame the public for being in doubt as to the main outlines of the story, seeing that they had only the sung words to guide them.  With the exception of a few portions played by the lady singers, which were favourably received, the whole performance, which I had made to depend largely upon bold, energetic action and speech, remained but a musical shadow-play, to which the orchestra contributed its own inexplicable effusions, sometimes with exaggerated noise.  As characteristic of the treatment of my tone-colour, I may mention that the band-master of a Prussian military band, who, by the bye, had been well pleased with the performance, felt it incumbent upon him to give me some well-meant hints for my future guidance, as to the manipulation of the Turkish drum.  Before I relate the further history of this wonderful work of my youth, I will pause a moment briefly to describe its character, and especially its poetical elements.

Shakespeare’s play, which I kept throughout in mind as the foundation of my story, was worked out in the following manner:—­

An unnamed king of Sicily leaves his country, as I suggest, for a journey to Naples, and hands over to the Regent appointed—­whom I simply call Friedrich, with the view of making him appear as German as possible—­full authority to exercise all the royal power in order to effect a complete reform in the social habits of his capital, which had provoked the indignation of the Council.  At the opening of the play we see the servants of the public authority busily employed either in shutting up or in pulling down the houses of popular amusement in a suburb of Palermo, and in carrying off the inmates, including hosts and servants, as prisoners.  The populace