Opera in the United States dates back to the 18th century and developed from an imported European luxury into a vibrant, distinctly American art form. In the 19th and 20th centuries, tours, first by European artists and later by the Met, also brought opera to remote regions. Since 1931, regular radio broadcasts, and since 1949, televised operas, have contributed to the genre's popularity. Today, opera in the United States balances grand traditional productions with groundbreaking contemporary works.
Four opera companies – the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, the San Francisco Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Houston Grand Opera — have achieved international recognition, also the opera composers Joplin, Gershwin, Barber, Menotti, Bernstein, Floyd, Glass, Adams, Heggie and Mazzoli. Many new operas tackle contemporary social themes, historical events, or American literature – like Treemonisha, Porgy and Bess, Susannah, Einstein on the Beach, and Dead Man Walking. Musically, they frequently blend classical traditions with American idioms such as jazz, blues, musical theatre, and minimalism. The most famous US American singer was Maria Callas.
Unlike European opera, which traditionally relied on state funding, US opera relies heavily on private philanthropy and ticket sales.
18th century Colonial era ″Markets and warehouses, taverns and tobacco sheds, the local courthouse — these were the first homes of opera in North Amerika″, writes historian John Dizikes. He goes on underlining, that, unlike Europe, these venues had ″nothing to do with the splendor of the state, everything to do with day-to-day-commerce.″Dizikes: Opera in America, p. 58
The first opera known to have been performed in the American colonies was the ballad opera Flora, which was performed in Charleston, South Carolina on February 8, 1735. Later in the century, The Beggar's Opera was performed in New York City in 1750. This continued the trend of the popularity of ballad operas.
The Disappointment In 1767, a first example of an American ballad opera was announced in Philadelphia – The Disappointment or The Force of Credulity, written under the pseudonym Andrew Barton. It was heavily advertised and fully scheduled to premiere at Philadelphia's Southwark Theatre on April 20, 1767. However, just four days before opening night, the performance was abruptly cancelled. A notice in The Pennsylvania Gazette on April 22, 1767, explained that the play contained too many "personal reflections" that made it "unfit for the stage." In plain terms, it was a biting satire of local Philadelphia figures who were digging for buried pirate treasure, and those influential locals likely used their power to shut the production down before the curtain could rise.
The opera was reconstructed by Samuel Adler, it premiered in 1976 at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York during the United States Bicentennial.Andrew Barton: The Disappointment Or the Force of Credulity (1767), A-R Editions, Inc., 1976
New Orleans Opera in New Orleans began prior to the Louisiana Purchase, with the first recorded opera being a performance of André Grétry's Sylvain in May 1796. In January 1808, the Théâtre St. Philippe was opened with the U.S. Premiere of Une folie by French composer Étienne Méhul. The U.S. premiere of Cherubini's Les deux journées took place there in March 1811. The most famous opera venue in town between 1819 and 1859 was the Théâtre d'Orléans. Due to the sweltering summer months, the impresario John Davis took the opera company on the road to northeastern cities like Boston, New York and Philadelphia, starting in the late 1820s.
The Théâtre d'Orléans was succeeded by the French Opera House, located on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. This theatre burned down in 1919, causing severe disruption to opera in the city.Charlotte Bentley: New Orleans and the Creation of Transatlantic Opera, 1819–1859, University of Chicago Press 2022 Five persons, asleep over the Café de l'Opéra, barely escaped the fire, all scenery, costumes, and music were destroyed.Leonard Victor Huber: New Orleans: A Pictorial History, Pelican Publishing 1971, p. 158
19th century Lorenzo Da Ponte
The 18th century laid the foundation for the operatic tradition that would thrive in the United States in the subsequent centuries. Despite initial challenges and a limited scope, the interest in opera endured, paving the way for the expansion and diversification of the art form in the 19th century. Having had financial troubles in Europe, librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte came to the US in 1805. He settled in New York City first, then Sunbury, Pennsylvania, where he briefly ran a grocery store and gave private Italian lessons. He returned to New York to open a bookstore. He became friends with Clement Clarke Moore, and was named the first professor of Italian literature at Columbia College, an unpaid appointment. He viewed himself as an ambassador of European culture in a barbarous country. He persuaded the Spanish tenor Manuel García to bring his opera troupe to New York, where they performed at the Park Theatre at Park Row in lower Manhattan.
They presented a range of Italian operas, most of them by Gioachino Rossini. Opening night on December 4, 1825, was to The Barber of Seville. On May 23, 1826, the Manuel Garcia troupe also performed Don Giovanni. It was the first performance of this opera in America. Manuel Garcia's daughter, Maria Malibran, sung the role of Zerlina. Da Ponte was present.
Already before its first Italian season, the Park Theatre, established in 1798, had presented ballad operas like The Beggars Opera or Pasticcios. In 1812, the Yankee Chronology by William Dunlap was performed, a musical interlude in one act. In 1819, English tenor Thomas Phillips scored a big success with an English version of The Barber of Seville. In 1824, an mutilated version of The Marriage of Figaro was shown, followed by Weber's Der Freischütz in March of 1825, again a stunning success. In 1848, the Park Theatre burned down.
In 1833, at the age of eighty-four, Da Ponte founded the first purpose-built opera theater in the United States, the Italian Opera House. It was located on the northwest corner of Leonard and Church Streets in Manhattan and it was far superior to any theater the city had yet seen.Da Ponte in New York, Mozart in New York, Otto Biba, Academiccommons, Columbia University, pp. 114–115. It was a lavish, European-style building with frescoed ceilings and private boxes. But it lasted only for two seasons before the company went bankrupt. Shortly after the death of Da Ponte, his opera house burned down to the ground. It was, however, the predecessor of the New York Academy of Music and of the Metropolitan Opera.
Opera houses in New York City 1844 Palmo's Opera House 1847 Astor Opera House
European tours and emergence of American companies During the 1800s, European opera companies embarked on tours across prominent cities in the United States, introducing timeless masterpieces to American spectators. Memorable shows played a significant role in the increasing appeal of opera. In several cities an Academy of Music was established — for example in Boston (1853), in New York City (1854), in Philadelphia (1857), in Brooklyn (1861) and in Atlantic City (1892); these were purely performance venues, not training institutions. The emergence of these opera companies marked a transition towards establishing a domestically nurtured operatic heritage. Opera in the 19th century became a cultural cornerstone, influencing literature, art, and societal norms. It played a role in shaping the cultural identity of growing cities, with the Metropolitan Opera, founded in 1883, emerging as a major institution. Opera went where there was money (and preferably already a train station), so in 1878 even Central City, Colorado became the proud owner of an Opera House
Academy of Music in Manhattan
During the demise of the Astor Opera House, New York's elite started to build a new opera house in what was then the more genteel neighborhood of Union Square. Its name was Academy of Music and it was located on 14th Street between Third Avenue and Irving Place. Moses H. Grinnell instigated the project and formed a corporation in 1852 to fund the construction. Shares were sold at $1,000 each to raise $200,000. The building was designed by Alexander Saeltzer, a German-American architect, and, at the time, it was the world's largest opera venue. It seated over 4,600, but had limited accommodation in boxes for the gentry. There were only 18 boxes. The Academy of Music opened in 1854 and was the first enduring dedicated opera house in the United States, undisputed and unrivaled for nearly thirty years. A review in The New York Times praised the building to be an acoustical ″triumph″, but ″In every other aspect ... a decided failure,″ complaining about the interior design and the closeness of the seating. The opening night was dedicated to Bellinis Norma, starring Giulia Grisi and Giuseppe Mario. Further female stars of the Academy of Music were Hungarian Etelka Gerster, Swedish Christina Nilsson, American Minnie Hauk and Adelina Patti.
Adelina Patti
The absolute star of the Academy of Music in the later years was Adelina Patti (1843-1919), a soprano of Italian descent. She debuted there at just 16 years in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor. In the 1870s and 1880s, Patti was the highest-paid classical musician worldwide. She received up to $ 5.000 in Gold per night − payable to her manager before she would enter the stage. She was exempt from attending rehearsals, could decide her own roles and the schedule of the performances. Her most famous roles — apart of Donizetti's Lucia — were Amina and Elvira in Bellini operas, Rosina and Semiramide in Rossini operas, Marguerite and Juliette in Gounod operas, Dinorah in Meyerbeer's Le Pardon de Ploërmel as well as the Verdi roles Violetta, Gilda and Leonora (Il trovatore).
Opera war in New York City In the 1880s, a controversy arose between the old elite and the nouveau riche of Manhattan. To publicly affirm their status, they demanded a box at the Academy of Music. After Maria Louisa Kassam, since 1841 married with William H. Vanderbilt, heiress to an immense fortune, was denied a box, the immediate need for a new opera house—with enough boxes for the new elite—became apparent. In 1883, the Metropolitan Opera House in the 39th Street was completed.Paul Jackson: Saturday Afternoons At The Old Met, The Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts 1931-1950, Bloomsbury Academic 1992Dizikies: Opera in America, 216
Wagner's immediate recognition Although German composer Richard Wagner was an outspoken anti-Semite, which was also well known by then, his work quickly gained popularity in the US at the end of the 1880s, especially in cities with substantial immigration from Germany (Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, San Francisco, Milwaukee). Orchestral excerpts were performed in American concerts by the late 1850s, helping seed interest before full operas appeared. American conductors and impresarios – most notably Theodore Thomas – championed Wagner in concert, normalizing long symphonic excerpts and preludes. The Metropolitan Opera (opened in 1883) quickly became a Wagner stronghold, thanks to Leopold Damrosch, Anton Seidl and Walter Damrosch. Its early seasons featured Lohengrin and Tannhäuser, and by the 1890s the Met was presenting Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Tristan und Isolde, and the four Ring operas (beginning piecemeal, then in cycles), mainly in German with prominent European guest singers.
Conductors from abroad While most European singers only came to the USA for a few months and then returned, several conductors stayed longer in the country and set the standards at the Met.