For my first curtain I want a quaint, soft Japanese melody, pp--you know how!" And so "Madame Butterfly," the play, was made.

In two weeks all was ready, and a day after the first performance at the Herald Square Theatre, on March 5, 1900, the city began to hum with eager comment on the dramatic intensity of the scene of a Japanese woman's vigil, of the enthralling eloquence of a motionless, voiceless figure, looking steadily through a hole torn through a paper partition, with a sleeping child and a nodding maid at her feet, while a mimic night wore on, the lanterns on the floor flickered out one by one and the soft violins crooned a melody to the arpeggios of a harp.
The season at the Herald Square Theatre was saved.

Some time later, when Mr.Belasco accompanied Mr.Charles Frohman to London to put on "Zaza" at the Garrick Theatre, he took "Madame Butterfly" with him and staged it at the Duke of York's Theatre, hard by.

On the first night of "Madame Butterfly" Mr.Frohman was at the latter playhouse, Mr.Belasco at the former.

The fall of the curtain on the little Japanese play was followed by a scene of enthusiasm which endured so long that Mr.
Frohman had time to summon his colleague to take a curtain call.