Mr. Rosa's successful season at Her Majesty's Theatre has brought the question of the permanent establishment of English opera in London into the foreground once again. Thoughtful musicians and amateurs ask themselves, “Why should not we have an opera in our own tongue, sung more or less by our own people, and produced at least in reasonable proportion by our own poets and composers, such as the French and Germans, and even the Hungarians and Danes, have had for years?” The late operatic season has proved two things :—First, that singers English-born, and partly at least Englishtrained, are quite able to do justice to some of the most difficult works of the international repertoire; and, second, that under an intelligent and enterprising management English opera need by no means spell “Ruin.” By these two facts the chance of future and of permanent success may be considered safely established; but intelligence and enterprise are not alone sufficient to account for a success which is in strong contrast with the anything but brilliant results of previous seasons at the Lyceum and the Adelphi. The causes of this change must be looked for elsewhere, and it is of these causes, considered from a broadly historic point of view, that the present article is intended to treat.