Once or twice — notably, one dreadful evening when the Mallinger was playing Susanna to her detested rival's " farfallone amoroso " — the performance came to a dead stop, and the curtain had to be lowered in the middle of the action of the piece, owing to the absolutely riotous behaviour of the antagonistic factions. Some minutes later on, when — the disturbance having been partially quelled by the energetic interference of the police — the curtain again rose, discovering Cherubino and Susanna " as before," Frau von Khaden considerably astonished the audience by advancing rapidly to the footlights, withering her persecutors by such a look of indignant contempt as no one present had ever theretofore seen gleaming from her bright blue eyes, and scornfully exclaiming, "You are very badly bred people! I am not accustomed to be insulted; pray understand this, once for all!"- with which she turned her back on the house and quitted the stage ; nor could she be induced to return to it that evening.