Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

4. Opera and musical theatre.

Italian opera first reached New York on 29 November 1825 with a performance at the Park Theatre of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia by an Italian company led by Manuel García, the famous Spanish singer and teacher, who took the part of Count Almaviva. The ensemble of eight singers, four of them Garcías (including the 17-year-old Maria-Felicia, later Malibran), had been recruited in London by a New York vintner, Dominick Lynch. Encouraged by Lorenzo da Ponte, then a professor of Italian at Columbia College, Lynch took García’s troupe to New York for a season of 79 performances, accompanied by a local orchestra of 24; the repertory included Don Giovanni, Rossini’s Tancredi, Otello, Il turco in Italia and La Cenerentola, Zingarelli’s Giulietta e Romeo and García’s own La figlia dell’aria. Before García’s appearance opera in New York had consisted of makeshift adaptations of comic pasticcios with spoken dialogue and popular airs inserted in place of difficult arias (see §1 above), performed by actors. No female stars performed in New York until the 1820s. After the Garcías’ departure for Mexico in November 1826, a French company from New Orleans took a two-month season of French opera to the Park Theatre, opening on 13 July 1827 with Isouard’s Cendrillon. The French repertory included at least ten operas, among them Cherubini’s Les deux journées, Auber’s La dame blanche and Boieldieu’s Le calife de Bagdad. The next opera company to appear was led by the tenor Giovanni Montresor in 1832–3; it gave about 50 performances of such works as Bellini’s Il pirata and Mercadante’s Elisa e Claudio, in addition to works of Rossini. Another French troupe from New Orleans introduced Rossini’s Le comte Ory (Park Theatre, 19 August 1833) and Herold’s Zampa.

New York’s first venue for opera, the Italian Opera House at Church and Leonard streets, opened on 18 November 1833 with Rossini’s La gazza ladra; among its backers were Lynch and Da Ponte. The second season was financially disastrous and in December 1835 the building was sold. When it reopened as the National Theater it joined other New York theatres as the home to British stars performing in the English-language repertory. The English opera was popular until the mid-1840s. On 3 February 1844 Ferdinando Palmo, a restaurateur, opened Palmo’s Opera House (cap. c800) with the New York première of Bellini’s I puritani. In four seasons Palmo introduced Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda, Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia and Linda di Chamounix, and Verdi’s I Lombardi. At other theatres pasticcios of opera in English by Balfe, Rooke and Benedict remained popular. While Palmo’s held sway in Chambers Street, 150 wealthy men were raising money for another opera house further uptown, and the Astor Place Opera House (cap. 1500–1800) opened on 22 November 1847 with Verdi’s Ernani. The guaranteed support lasted only five years, financial returns were slight and the house closed in 1852.

The period between 1847 and the founding of the Metropolitan Opera in 1883 was a turbulent one in New York’s operatic history, dominated by colourful impresarios, competitive prima donnas and constantly changing personnel who appeared in operatic performances in many New York theatres. After the closure of the house at Astor Place the only theatre devoted specifically to concert and opera was the Academy of Music at 14th Street and Irving Place, which opened on 2 October 1854 with a performance of Bellini’s Norma starring Giulia Grisi and Giuseppe Mario; it continued to present regular operatic seasons until 1886. When it was built (at a cost of $335,000), the house contained the largest stage in the world (21·5 × 30 metres) and seated 4600. During the first 24 years the management changed every season.

Max Maretzek, who left London in 1848 to conduct at the Astor Place Opera, was among the more prominent impresarios. A frequent lessee and conductor at the Academy of Music, he was associated with the first New York performances of many operas there. Academy audiences heard Rigoletto (19 February 1855), Il trovatore (2 May 1855), La traviata (3 December 1856), Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine (1 December 1865) and Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette (15 November 1867), the last two in Italian. The brothers Maurice and Max Strakosch were also among the operatic producers active in New York from 1857. Most important was J.H. Mapleson, who went to the Academy of Music in 1878 and directed operatic activities there and abroad until 1886. Many great singers appeared in New York; audiences in 1853, for example, heard the nine-year-old Adelina Patti, Mario, Lind, Henriette Sontag, Grisi and Marietta Alboni. Later decades saw the appearance of such singers as Christine Nilsson, Lilli Lehmann and Italo Campanini. 39 American singers, among them Lillian Nordica, Clara Kellogg, Minnie Hauk and Annie Louise Cary, sang at the Academy of Music before 1884. Local composers were not so fortunate, although Bristow’s Rip Van Winkle ran for four weeks in 1855 at Niblo’s Garden, and Fry’s Leonora was heard in March 1858, 13 years after its première in Philadelphia. The first German operas (albeit English adaptations) performed in New York were Der Freischütz (1825), Die Zauberflöte and Fidelio (both in the 1830s). The first opera by Wagner heard in the city was Tannhäuser, given on 4 April 1859 at the Stadt Theater.

The Metropolitan Opera House at Broadway and 39th Street opened with Gounod’s Faust on 22 October 1883 (fig.6). Originally conceived as a social gesture by a score of millionaires who could not obtain boxes at the Academy of Music, the Metropolitan quickly achieved international eminence. The Metropolitan Opera Association has the longest uninterrupted existence of any organization of its kind in the USA: apart from 1892–3, when the house was closed because of a fire, and 1897–8, when Maurice Grau reorganized his company, a resident company has presented opera continuously at the Metropolitan since 1883. Henry Abbey, a well-known theatrical producer with little operatic experience, directed the first season and incurred a loss of $500,000. The artistic importance of the house dates from the following season when the board of directors accepted Leopold Damrosch’s proposal that he should direct a season of German opera. In the seven years after Damrosch’s death in 1885 all of Wagner’s operas from Rienzi to Götterdämmerung were conducted – five for the first time in America – by his successor, Anton Seidle. As in Europe, this was the peak period for Wagnerism, and this was particularly evident in New York. Celebrated European singers like Lehmann, Marianne Brandt, Amalie Materna and Albert Niemann were members of the company, and in effect the Metropolitan became a German opera house; even Il trovatore and Aida were given there in German. Out of 17 operas in the repertory in the 1890–91 season, eight were by Wagner.

The sobriety of the programmes eventually exhausted the patience of the box holders, and in 1891 Abbey returned as lessee, placing the management in the hands of Grau, a shrewd student of public taste. He built his company around such admirable singers as Emma Eames, the De Reszkes, Emma Albani and Jean Lassalle, at first presenting the repertory exclusively in French and Italian. It was Grau’s conviction that audiences attended opera primarily to hear fine singing, a belief he substantiated with some of the most brilliant casts Americans had ever heard. Among them were Nordica, Eames, Zélie De Lussan, Victor Maurel, Edouard De Reszke and Giuseppe Russitano in Don Giovanni; Melba, Nordica, Sofia Scalchi, the De Reszkes, Maurel and Pol Plançon in Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots; and Nordica, Brema, the De Reszkes and Giuseppe Kaschmann in Tristan und Isolde when the performance of German opera in German was resumed in 1896. In many respects these paralleled performances at Covent Garden, where Grau was also the impresario during part of this period.

Grau retired in 1903 and a new producing group was organized with Heinrich Conried as manager. His theatrical experience as a producer of plays in German improved that aspect of the Metropolitan’s productions considerably. Highlights of Conried’s tenure included Caruso’s Metropolitan début (23 November 1903), a sensational Salome with Fremstad (22 January 1907), Chaliapin as an almost nude Méphistophélès (20 November 1907) and Mahler conducting Tristan und Isolde (1 January 1908).

Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the director of La Scala, was engaged as director in 1908, becoming general manager in 1910; Toscanini came to the Metropolitan with him, making his conducting début in a performance of Aida (16 November 1908). With the musical cooperation of Toscanini and the financial assistance of Otto Kahn, Gatti-Casazza established an operatic enterprise of imposing scope and efficiency. Under him the policy of presenting opera in the language of its composition became the rule of the house. Important conductors during his 27-year tenure included Mahler (1908–10), Toscanini (1908–15), Hertz (1902–15), Bodanzky (1915–39) and Serafin (1924–34). The repertory was expanded to include as many as 48 different works in a 24-week season. Puccini’s La fanciulla del West and Humperdinck’s Königskinder had their world premières at the Metropolitan in 1910. Gatti-Casazza continued to keep abreast of operatic developments in Italy and elsewhere, at the same time initiating the production of American operas, including Converse’s The Pipe of Desire (18 March 1910), Parker’s Mona (14 March 1912) and Taylor’s Peter Ibbetson (7 February 1931). Although the company prospered under Gatti-Casazza’s astute management, the 1929 stock market collapse and ensuing Depression severely depleted its reserve fund, and the season was shortened to 16 and later to 14 weeks. In 1935 Gatti-Casazza retired and was succeeded briefly by the singer Herbert Witherspoon, who died while planning his first season. His successor was the Canadian tenor Edward Johnson, long a member of the company, who managed the Metropolitan until 1950.

An experiment with a low-priced spring season featuring young American singers sponsored by the Juilliard Foundation lasted only two years (1936–7), but American singers such as Lawrence Tibbett, Eleanor Steber, Rose Bampton, Richard Crooks, Dorothy Kirsten, Leonard Warren and Risë Stevens played an increasingly important role during Johnson’s regime. Helen Traubel, Lauritz Melchior and Kirsten Flagstad led a strong Germanic wing with outstanding Wagner performances in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Italian opera continued to dominate the repertory, French works being in the minority. Few modern operas were produced during Johnson’s tenure, although the Metropolitan did give Walter Damrosch’s The Man without a Country in 1937, Bernard Rogers’s The Warrior in 1947 and Britten’s Peter Grimes in 1948. The Metropolitan Opera Guild, a supporting organization founded in 1935 by Mrs August Belmont, has a national membership of over 100,000 and sponsors an educational programme and special performances for schoolchildren.

In 1950 Rudolf Bing, a Viennese impresario who had managed the Glyndebourne and Edinburgh festivals, became general manager of the Metropolitan. His tenure, which lasted until 1972, was marked by modernization of stage techniques, an increasingly international cast and the move of the company to new quarters in Lincoln Center. Although the repertory remained basically conservative, Bing introduced several American operas including Barber’s Vanessa (15 January 1958; see fig.7), Menotti’s Le dernier sauvage (23 January 1964) and Levy’s Mourning Becomes Electra (17 March 1967); light operas such as Strauss’s Die Fledermaus and Offenbach’s La Périchole were also added to the repertory.

The new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center opened on 16 September 1966 with the world première of Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra, in which Justino Díaz and Leontyne Price sang the title roles. Although the work was a spectacular failure, the house was a success. The seating capacity of the new auditorium (3788) is not much larger than that of the West 39th Street building (3625), but the inadequate staging facilities of the old house were replaced by a much larger stage and generous backstage quarters. The $46 million required for construction was raised in contributions by Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Opera Association. The opera orchestra has 140 members and the chorus 80 full-time members.

In addition to accommodating the regular Metropolitan season of 32 weeks, the house is used by visiting opera and dance companies from the USA and abroad. Bing resigned in 1972 and his successor, the Swedish director Göran Gentele, died before his first season. Since then the Metropolitan Opera management has undergone several reorganizations, resulting in a gradual separation of the artistic and managerial functions. Artistic control has increasingly been given to the conductor James Levine, appointed music director in 1975. His interests range from the early Mozart operas to the classics of the 20th-century repertory. Notable new productions under his tenure have included Idomeneo, Rinaldo, Lulu, Wozzeck, Mahagonny and Moses und Aron. Management of the company has been assumed by a succession of administrators: Schuyler Chapin (1972–5), Anthony Bliss (1975–85, with Levine and John Dexter, 1975–80), Bruce Crawford (1986–9), Hugh Southern (1989–90) and Joseph Volpe (from 1990). The Metropolitan has maintained its international status as a showcase for singers suited to the scale of the auditorium, a scale which also helped determine the house production style of spectacular naive realism, represented particularly by the work of Zeffirelli (see Opera, fig.50). In the 1990s the company began to use in addition more exploratory directors and designers, and to broaden its hitherto traditional repertory. Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles, given its première on 19 December 1991, was the first new opera performed by the company since Antony and Cleopatra, and was followed by Glass’s The Voyage (1992) and Harbison’s The Great Gatsby (1999). During this period, too, Levine began giving concerts at Carnegie Hall with the Metropolitan orchestra.

Only two companies have challenged the hegemony of the Metropolitan on a regular basis. The first, Oscar Hammerstein’s Manhattan Opera Company, opened in December 1906 in the Manhattan Opera House on 34th Street; Cleofonte Campanini was artistic director and conductor. Before frustrated guarantors of the Metropolitan bought him out in 1910, Hammerstein had introduced many French works to American audiences, including Thaïs (25 November 1907), Louise (3 January 1908) and Pelléas et Mélisande (19 February 1908), all with Mary Garden. He also presented such celebrated singers as Melba, Calvé, Tetrazzini, Renaud and Dalmorès, in a varied repertory including the American première of Strauss’s Elektra (1 February 1910).

The New York City Opera was founded as the City Center Opera Company in 1943. Opening at the City Center Theater in West 55th Street on 21 February 1944 with Dusolina Giannini as Tosca, the company has consistently encouraged participation by younger singers, composers and audiences. At first seasons were short, a few weeks before and after the Metropolitan, but the spring and autumn periods were later lengthened to 11 weeks each, with about 175 performances given annually. A succession of conductor-managers – Laszlo Halász (1944–51), Josef Rosenstock (1952–5), Erich Leinsdorf (1956–7) and Julius Rudel (1957–79) – produced an imaginative repertory ranging from Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges (1949), Wozzeck (1959), Handel’s Giulio Cesare (1971) and Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea (1973), to Gilbert and Sullivan, without neglecting standard works. American opera fared particularly well at the City Opera; premières included Still’s Troubled Island (1949), Copland’s The Tender Land (1954), Kurka’s The Good Soldier Schweik (1958), Douglas Moore’s The Wings of the Dove (1961), Ward’s The Crucible (1961), Rorem’s Miss Julie (1965), Weisgall’s Nine Rivers from Jordan (1968) and Menotti’s La loca (1979). On 22 February 1966 the New York City Opera opened its spring season at its new home, the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center, with a performance of Ginastera’s Don Rodrigo. The house (cap. 2800) was originally designed for the New York City Ballet, and was criticized as acoustically unsuited to opera, but a renovation in 1981–2 (cap. 2737) resulted in improved acoustics for opera performances.

The City Opera has always stressed ensemble production in contrast to the international star system, and has produced some fine native singers, among them June Anderson, Patricia Brooks, Ashley Putnam, Samuel Ramey, John Reardon, Gianna Rolandi, Beverly Sills, Norman Treigle and Carol Vaness. Sills became director of the company in 1979, and Christopher Keene acted as music director (1982–6). Sills encouraged American conductors and opera in English. In 1984 the company was the first in the USA to introduce surtitles. The City Opera has continued to produce new works by American composers, among them Floyd’s Of Mice and Men, Glass’s Akhnaten, Anthony Davis’s X and Argento’s Casanova’s Homecoming. Productions of Bernstein’s Candide (1982) and Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd (1984) demonstrated Sills’s interest in forging links between opera and musical theatre. In 1984 the company received a gift of $5 million to make possible a regular spring season of musical comedy. Latterly one or two musical comedies have been performed each season along with traditional operas, new works (including Wiesgall’s Esther in the company’s 50th anniversary season) and rare 20th-century European works, such as Die Soldaten, Doktor Faust and Mathis der Maler, that became a speciality during Keene’s term as general director (1989–96). His successor, Paul Kellogg, has turned attention more to the recent American past.

Notable among the city’s smaller opera companies are the Amato Opera Theatre (founded 1948), which has presented the American premières of Boito’s Nerone and Verdi’s Alzira; the Bronx Opera Company (1967), which juxtaposes standard repertory with lesser-known works; the Opera Orchestra of New York (1966), which gives unusual works in concert form; the Village Light Opera Group (1968); the New York Grand Opera (1973), which presents popular staged performances of more familiar operas; and the Dicapo Opera (1981), which mixes the familiar with the unfamiliar. Conservatories and schools combine training and performance in contemporary and standard repertory; among the most important are the Juilliard School’s American Opera Center and the Manhattan School of Music. Besides the ensembles already mentioned, over 40 organizations produce operas regularly.

The New York stage has also played host to more popular musical entertainment throughout its history. Following the success of ballad opera in the 18th century, parody burlesques, minstrel shows and extravaganzas dominated the scene in the mid-19th century. The Black Crook (music by Thomas Baker and others, 1866), Evangeline (1874) by E.E. Rice and Charles Hoyt’s A Trip to Chinatown (1890) were particularly successful productions in a developing vernacular form that eventually fused song, dance and plot into the American musical comedy.

Operettas by Offenbach were popular from the 1860s, but in the two decades after the New York première of H.M.S. Pinafore (January 1879) European light opera by Sullivan, Audran, Millöcker and others competed with local operetta by Caryll, Kerker, De Koven and Herbert. Gilbert and Sullivan, Lehár and Strauss still draw enthusiastic audiences to both opera houses and off-Broadway theatres, especially the Light Opera of Manhattan (founded 1968).

George M. Cohan’s first success, Little Johnny Jones (1904), popularized the patriotic American musical; ‘Give my regards to Broadway’ became a theme that summed up the importance of the New York stage in the vernacular musical theatre for the rest of the century. A Broadway run is a requisite for a successful musical comedy, and Broadway theatres have fostered such composers as Kern, Berlin, Gershwin, Porter and Rodgers. Blitzstein, Menotti, Bernstein and Sondheim have attempted to bridge the gap between the Broadway musical and opera with such works as Regina (1949), The Consul (1950), Candide (1956) and Sweeney Todd (1979). After the Metropolitan Opera opened its house on Broadway in 1883, lavish theatres were soon built in the district around 42nd Street, such as the Lyceum (1903), New Amsterdam (1903), Lyric (1903), Liberty (1904), Republic (later Belasco and Victory, 1907), Eltinge (later Empire, 1912), Harris (1914), Apollo (1920) and Ritz (later Walter Kerr, 1921). The area became the centre of entertainment after the brothers Shubert began to operate their theatres in 1900. By the late 1920s the Shubert Organization owned more than 100 theatres around the country; among those in the city were the Shubert Theatre, Booth Theatre (both built in 1913), the Broadhurst Theatre (1917) and the Barrymore Theatre (1928), which the organization retained until the 1990s. In the mid-1990s the Shuberts owned and operated 16 Broadway theatres. Since its arrival to Broadway, the organization has produced over 500 melodramas, comedies, operettas, musicals and reviews. The New York opening of the Walt Disney Company’s first Broadway show, Beauty and the Beast (1994), coincided with the beginning of Disney’s renovation of several theatres on 42nd Street.

Dance also plays a vital part in New York’s musical-theatrical life. Among the most prominent of the almost 100 dance companies in the city are the New York City Ballet (founded 1948), the Ballet Theatre (1939; renamed the American Ballet Theatre, 1956), the Robert Joffrey Theatre Ballet (1956–64, the Robert Joffrey Ballet since 1965), the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre (1958), the Martha Graham Dance Company (1926) and the Paul Taylor Dance Company (1961).

New York