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ABSTRACT
Most scholars of American history are completely unaware that opera – in particular opera performed in English – was an extraordinarily successful style of popular entertainment in the United States during the nineteenth century. In this article, we will investigate both the activities of the most important and successful English-language companies of the time as well as the confident, ambitious, skilled, and determined women who managed them. In the process, readers will learn about an almost completely overlooked element of American popular culture of the second half of the century and gain new insight into changing gender roles in the United States during this period.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 United States Census Bureau (https://www.census.gov/dmd/www/resapport/states/colorado.pdf, accessed 15 October 2014); “Perfection! Tabor’s Great Triumph Opened Last Night,” Rocky Mountain News, 6 September 1881, 8. See also Preston, Opera for the People, chapter 5 and Stewart, “The Opera is Booming.”
2 In this article, “English opera,” “English-language opera,” and “vernacular opera” all refer to opera performed in English, including both translations and works originally written in the vernacular. The latter term is used with the standard meaning, “the native or indigenous language of a country or district” (Oxford English Dictionary, online). During most of the period covered in this article, “Italian” opera (which also included translations of works originally written in French, German, and English) and “English” opera were the two most common descriptors used for opera companies in the United States, although there were also (fewer) troupes that performed in French and German.
3 “The Performance Last Night,” Denver Tribune, 6 September 1881, [1], “Perfection! Tabor’s Great Triumph Opened Last Night,” Rocky Mountain News, 6 September 1881, 8; and unidentified account from the Denver Tribune, 4 September 1881, quoted in Young, Famous American Playhouses, 1716-1899, 272–81.
4 Works performed by the company in Denver included Maritana, Lucia di Lammermoor, Fra Diavolo, Il Trovatore, Les noces d’Olivette, The Bohemian Girl, Martha, Faust, The Chimes of Normandy, Cecilia’s Love (Abbott’s adaptation of La Traviata), Paul and Virginia, and portions of Romeo and Juliet in the “grand testimonial concert” on the final evening. Performances were Monday through Saturday evenings and two matinees. “Grand opera” was a term adopted by many English-language troupes that mounted primarily a repertory of operas translated from the standard European repertory as well as works originally written in English. This term was particularly popular in the 1880s and distinguished these companies from troupes that mounted comic operas and operettas. Names of the operas are as they were used by English-language troupes – some translated and others in the original language.
5 The term “middle class,” of course, is fraught with ambiguity. I use it in this article to refer to professionals and their families: lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, teachers, businessmen and -women, ministers, politicians, white-collar managers, and other workers who enjoyed the luxury of discretionary time and money.
6 I cover in detail all five of these women in Opera for the People.
7 Levine, Highrow Lowbrow, 101–4. Earlier in the book, Levine (relying in part on my scholarship) had described antebellum opera as “simultaneously popular and elite” (86) (his emphasis). But Levine’s conclusions about the place of opera in late nineteenth-century America echoed what Americanist musicologists of the 1980s believed – that opera was exclusive, aristocratic, and unpopular. But at that point, no one had yet thoroughly researched the role of English-language opera, so this conclusion was wrong. I discuss some of the reasons for this lacuna in Americanist music historiography in the brief Epilogue to Opera for the People.
8 I have written extensively about this topic, most notably in Opera on the Road and Opera for the People. Other important monographs include those by Ahlquist, Democracy at the Opera; Martin, Verdi at the Golden Gate and Opera at the Bandstand; Wilson, “The Impact of French Opera in Nineteenth-Century New York”; Turner, “Opera in English”; Bentley, New Orleans and the Creation of Transatlantic Opera; and Stewart, “The Opera is Booming.”
9 Quoted in Faner, Walt Whitman & Opera, 39 and 59. Alboni first visited New York in late 1852; see Preston, Opera on the Road, 343n20.
10 Roppolo, “Audiences in New Orleans Theatre,” 126.
11 “Dis am de Cullud Gallery,” Folio, 11:3 (July 1870), 9; illustration titled “French Opera House, New Orleans,” Every Sunday, 15 July 1871, clipping in the Historic New Orleans Collection.
12 For information about the variety of music in binder’s volumes, see my introduction to Emily’s Songbook; Meyer-Frazier, Bound Music, Unbound Women; and Bailey’s article in this issue and her numerous other works on binder’s volumes.
13 The connection between English-language opera and the theatre contrasted with an emerging belief that foreign-language opera should be considered part of the musical world. This was a change from the antebellum period, when even foreign-language opera was regarded as a component of the theater. Because of Richings’ identification as a singing actress, she best fits into the theatrical milieu explored by Mullenneaux in Staging Family. Some circumstances faced by operatic performers differed from those of actresses, but all women on the nineteenth-century American stage confronted the reality that their very presence in the public arena contradicted entrenched American expectations about female domesticity.
14 For information on the Seguin Opera Company, see Preston, Opera on the Road, esp. Chapter 5.
15 For more on the increasing aura of Italian opera as elite and a concurrent erosion in the image of English opera in the 1840s and 1850s, see Preston, Opera on the Road, especially chapters 3 and 5.
16 The reception of foreign-language opera in post-war America is covered in Graziano, “An Opera for Every Taste,” 253–72.
17 Louise Kellogg benefitted from the dearth of foreign prima donnas during the war years.
18 “Musical Gossip,” Watson’s Art Journal, v:25 (11 October 1866), 398.
19 For more information about these individuals, see Curry, American Women Theatre Managers, 19; Leach, Bright Particular Star, 107–14; Davis, Actresses as Working Women; Dudden, Women in the American Theatre, 123–4; Morgan, “Of Stars and Standards”; and Cooney, “Women in American Theatre.” See also Mullenneaux, who discusses Keene, Drew, Mowatt, Cushman, and many other actresses.
20 “National Theatre,” Daily National Intelligencer, 29 October 1866 [1]. Mullenneaux (Chapter 6) discusses how family members who travelled with actresses helped with respectability.
21 Richings Company playbills from December 1867, for example, are more specific than usual but still name only fifteen singers, including the principals. Boston Theatre playbills, December 1867, Opera Scrapbook Vol. 4, pp. 491–6, Harvard Theatre Collection.
22 “English Opera – Olympic Theatre,” vi:13 (19 January 1867), 200 and vi:14 (26 January 1867), 216, both in Watson’s Art Journal.
23 Descriptions are from Castle, “Reminiscences of English Opera,” 36–40 (39) and Upton, Musical Memories, 141.
24 Richings is frequently referred to as a “fair directress” in reviews. The other quotes are from “Our Musical Correspondence – Boston,” Whitney’s Musical Guest, iv:8 (August 1867), 124 and “Dramatic and Musical,” Daily Cleveland Herald, 20 December 1866 [1].
25 Hess, “Early Opera in America,” 151; Crosby family oral history is cited by Cropsey, Crosby’s Opera House, 231.
26 “Amusements,” Chicago Tribune, 21 May 1867, [4].
27 One review mentioned that Richings’ company had “no less than forty-six first-class people.” “The English Opera,” Georgia Weekly Telegraph & Georgia Journal & Messenger, 15 March 1870, 4.
28 Parepa’s choice of Carl Rosa, who would become the troupe’s conductor (and, after her death, the manager of the Rosa Opera Company) dovetails with attempts by other women performers “to balance professional and personal lives” (Mulleneaux, 218; see her discussion of marriages in Chapter 7).
29 “City and Vicinity,” Lowell [MA] Daily Citizen and News, 20 May 1869, [2]. For information on Kellogg’s mother as chaperone, see her Memoirs. Kellogg married her manager Karl Strakosch in 1887.
30 “Dramatic, Musical, &c,” [Philadelphia] North American and United States Gazette, 18 December 1872, 2.
31 Information about the Lucca-Kellogg tour is from Kellogg, Memoirs, 228–53.
32 Kellogg, 249; “Close of the Italian (in English) Opera,” Watson’s Art Journal, xxii:17 (20 February 1875), 199.
33 Kellogg, 254; “The Kellogg Opera Troupe,” Watson’s Art Journal, xix:20 (13 September 1873), 236.
34 Precise information about the size of Italian-language companies active in America during this time is almost impossible to find.
35 This nativism and xenophobia had an impact on Americans’ eventual abandonment of foreign-language opera, especially after the Panic, which quickly exacerbated the situation. I discuss this complex intermingling of social currents in some detail in Opera for the People, especially in Chapter 3, “Foreign-Language Opera is Exclusive; Vernacular is ‘For the People.’”
36 See, for example, “The Operatic Despotism,” Spirit of the Times, 15 November 1873, 324, which was reprinted all over the country.
37 “Amusements,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 19 October and 5 November 1873, 5 and 6; “The English Opera,” Chicago Sunday Times, 23 November 1873, 8; “Miss Kellogg in English Opera,” Watson’s Art Journal, xxii:13 (23 January 1875), 150; [no title], Song Journal, v:2 (February 1875), 42.
38 For the size of Kellogg’s company, see “An Exciting Ride,” Whitney’s Musical Guest and Literary Journal, vii:3 (March 1874), 94.
39 Wharton, Age of Innocence.
40 This modern view of opera, which is shared by most scholars, is predicated on the unstated assumption that English-language opera disappeared from the American stage at mid-century, which is clearly incorrect.
41 There is almost no mention of English-opera activity in surveys of American music history, most of which focus almost exclusively on American composers as opposed to performance history. If opera in the post-bellum period is mentioned at all, it is foreign-language opera. By the 1880s, foreign-language opera companies were almost completely dependent on the wealthy. But not all attendees of foreign-language companies (especially when they toured) were from that demographic. There is evidence, for example, that Leopold Damrosch’s German-language opera company (at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1884) also attracted some of the many German immigrants then living in New York. Critic Frederick Schwab, for example, noted that “Society” cared only for “Italian voices in Italian song” but that German opera pleased “the genuine lover of music,” presumably including operagoing residents of Kleindeutschland, the large German immigrant neighborhood on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. (“Opera at the Metropolitan,” New York Times, 17 August 1884, 6.) It is impossible to know, however, what portion of the audience for foreign-language opera was comprised of either Italian or German immigrants.
42 The term “grand opera” in this sense had nothing to do with the “grand opera” of Giacomo Meyerbeer, although both the foreign- and English-language troupes performed many of his works.
43 Susie Sweet, “Correspondence of the Citizen,” Lowell Daily Citizen, 31 October 1879.
44 ALS, Tom Karl to Effie Ober [1879?] from Philadelphia, Harvard Theatre Collection; “English Opera,” Rocky Mountain News (Denver), 18 March 1884, 5.
45 Performers and speakers are mentioned in advertisements in contemporary newspapers. Biographical information on any of these women is readily available in standard sources such as American National Biography.
46 “Emma Abbott’s Motto,” Washington Post, 20 April 1884, 4.
47 Throughout her book, Mullenneaux describes behavior of this nature (publicizing modest origins and working to create a “just-like-you” image) as among the techniques used by actresses to “normalize” their professional lives.
48 This was also the case for Black actors. As Mulleneaux writes, “Legitimate theaters barred black actors almost completely.” See 151–8; quote from 153.
49 There is solid historiography on these and other Black singers. See, in particular, Graziano, “The Early Career of the ‘Black Patti’”; and Southern, “The Hyers Sisters Combination.” I deal with these singers and provide additional bibliography in “‘A Rarefied Art?”. There were also amateur Black opera companies, for example in Washington, D.C. and in Denver. See Warfield, “John Esputa, John Philip Sousa, and the Boundaries of a Musical Career,” 27–46 and Stewart, “The Opera is Booming,” Chapter 5. See also André, Black Opera: History.
50 “Emma Abbott. The New Era of Abbott English Opera Coming,” Cincinnati Commercial, 21 September 1890, 12.
51 There was much conflicting information in the press about the size of Abbott’s estate, which was generally reported to have been roughly $500,000. This, in 2021 terms, is roughly $15.5 million. See “Emma Abbott’s Will,” American Art Journal, 17 January 1891, 210. Wetherell was an astute businessman and over the years regularly purchased real estate, which contributed to their wealth. For currency equivalencies, see Measuring Worth (http://www.measuringworth.com, accessed 15 September 2022).
52 Cogan, All-American Girl, Introduction (3–26), 66, 88.
53 Schamp Family Tree, http://www.ancestry.com.
54 Ober, The Boston Directory, 1876–77. She worked for the Williams Lecture Agency, a branch of the New York American Literary Bureau.
55 “Miss E. H. Ober,” [Morning Chronicle?], 1885. Uncited and undated article, Clipping File, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. For an in-depth examination of the context for Ober’s activities as a businesswoman, see the sections “Women in Management” (251–4) and “American Businesswoman in the Postwar Period” (254–9) as well as the preceding pp. 243–51 of my Opera for the People. See also Cogan and Kwolek-Follard, Incorporating Women.
56 “Dramatic and Musical,” 16 May 1879, [1], Boston Evening Journal.
57 The company’s name originated from its goal to perform an “ideal” version of Pinafore – as close as possible to the original. There was not yet an international copyright agreement between the United States and the UK, so the score was fair game and many American productions made significant changes. Henry Clay Barnabee, one of the Ideals’ singers, had seen a performance of the original show in London and had taken production notes.
58 No communications from Ober are known to be extant. But there are ca. 350 letters from principals of the company to her in the Autograph Letters File, Harvard Theatre Collection, catalogued individually under the name of each singer.
59 “Miss E. H. Ober” clipping.
60 Barnabee, Reminiscences, 314. Ober’s construction of an artificial “family” could also work in the press to counteract performers’ lack of fidelity to what Mullenneaux (86) calls “the middle-class domestic ideology” about family life in nineteenth-century America.
61 “Gossip of the World,” and “World of Music: Chicago,” both from Brainard’s Musical World, xxii:1 (January 1885), 7, 32.
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Katherine K. Preston
Katherine K. Preston is David and Margaret Bottoms Professor of Music Emerita at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. A Past-President of the Society for American Music, she has published widely on various aspects of music and musical culture in nineteenth-century America.