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carried the name of Denmark far out in the world when he made the beautiful Royal castle by the Sound the scene of his tragedy. The connection with the English stage was kept up as time went on. Of late, some of Bernard Shaw’s witty plays have been performed at the Royal Thcatre. For some time the German poet Kotzebue reigned supreme in the repertoire and thus works by Goethe and Schiller were debarred from attaining, in their own time, the position that “ Faust” and “Maria Stuart” have since acquired. The Royal Theatre may be considered as the mother scene for all the rest of the theatres in Denmark. The first provincial playhouse was opened 1796 in Odense and in 1848 the “Casino” was started as the first “pri­ vate” theatre in Copenhagen. A peculiar feature of the theatre is the faet that it is the home of three different arts: the drama, opera and ballet, the orchestra working together with all of them. This orchestra is composed of the best players of the various musical instruments in the country. Its history dates still further back than that of the theatre itself.. Renowned composers, such as Niels W. Gade and Johan Svendsen, have been its con- ductors. The working together of the three arts enables the theatre to perform national festival plays as “ Fairy Hili” by J. L. Heiberg and Kuhlau, and "Once upon a time —” by Holger Drachmann and Lange-Muller, and to make the repertoire very varied and comprehensive, from dramas like the realistic works by Henrik Ibsen — “A Doll’s House” was first per- 22