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95-775: The National Opera Company and New American Opera Company were consecutive successors of the 1886 company. The first American Opera Company was founded by patron of the arts Jeannette Meyers Thurber , who also established the National Conservatory of Music of America . It was incorporated in 1878 with an ambitious prospectus, which anticipated productions featuring "the largest regularly trained chorus ever employed in grand opera in America", "the largest ballet corps ever presented in grand opera in America", "four thousand new and correct costumes for which no expense has been spared in fabric or manufacture", and scenery "painted by

190-716: A dozen or more opera performances in Philadelphia throughout the season. Over the years the number of performances was gradually reduced until the final Philadelphia season in 1961 consisted of only four operas. The final performance of that last season was on March 21, 1961, with Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli in Turandot . After the Tuesday night visits were ended, the Met still returned to Philadelphia on its spring tours in 1967, 1968, 1978, and 1979. For its second season,

285-610: A federally funded Conservatory of music in a capitalist society". In fact, the Institute of Musical Art of the City of New York, chartered in 1904 with the backing of Andrew Carnegie , was a privately funded institution and became her chief competition, and there is no indication in the public record that they accepted blacks, the handicapped or even women. The school ultimately morphed into the Juilliard School . (Carnegie also

380-492: A long relationship with the Met during this period. From 1900 to 1904, Lionel Mapleson (1865–1937) made a series of sound recordings at the Met. Mapleson, the nephew of the opera impresario James Henry Mapleson , was employed by the Met as a violinist and music librarian. He used an Edison cylinder phonograph set-up near the stage to capture short, one- to five-minute recordings of the soloists, chorus and orchestra during performances. These unique acoustic documents, known as

475-534: A millionaire grocery wholesaler. The couple had two daughters, Marianne and Jeannette. The family had a summer home at Onteora Park in the Catskill Mountains . In 1884 Thurber sponsored New York City's first Wagner festival. In 1885 she founded the National Conservatory of Music of America and its adjunct American Opera Company , both in New York. In 1888/89 she sponsored the New York debut of

570-448: A national opera is opera sung in a nation's language and, as far as practicable, the work of a nation's composers". The new company, which had Andrew Carnegie as its president and other New York millionaires among its board of directors, was under the musical direction of Theodore Thomas , with Gustav Hinrichs and Arthur Mees as assistant conductors, and Charles Locke as business manager. Its first season opened on January 6, 1886, with

665-522: A new building on 39th and Broadway (now known as the "Old Met"). It moved to the new Lincoln Center location in 1966. The Metropolitan Opera is the largest classical music organization in North America. Until 2019, it presented about 27 different operas each year from late September through May. The operas are presented in a rotating repertory schedule, with up to seven performances of four different works staged each week. Performances are given in

760-477: A new home in Lincoln Center. While many outstanding singers debuted at the Met under Bing's guiding hand, music critics complained of a lack of great conducting during his regime, even though such eminent conductors as Fritz Stiedry , Dimitri Mitropoulos , Erich Leinsdorf , Fritz Reiner , and Karl Böhm appeared frequently in the 1950s and '60s. Among the most significant achievements of Bing's tenure

855-757: A performance of Charles Gounod 's Faust starring the brilliant Swedish soprano Christina Nilsson . Abbey's company that first season featured an ensemble of artists led by sopranos Nilsson and Marcella Sembrich ; mezzo-soprano Sofia Scalchi ; tenors Italo Campanini and Roberto Stagno ; baritone Giuseppe Del Puente ; and bass Franco Novara . They gave 150 performances of 20 different operas by Gounod, Meyerbeer, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Wagner, Mozart, Thomas, Bizet, Flotow, and Ponchielli. All performances were sung in Italian and were conducted either by music director Auguste Vianesi or Cleofonte Campanini (the tenor Italo's brother). The company performed not only in

950-408: A six-week tour of American cities following its season in New York. These annual spring tours brought the company and its stars to cities throughout the U.S., most of which had no opera company of their own. In Cleveland, for example, Met stops were sporadic until 1924, when underwriting efforts spearheaded by Newton D. Baker led to 3 consecutive years of annual 8-engagement performances. This led to

1045-540: A well-known baritone and composer in his own right, as well as a faculty member at the Conservatory. In addition to race and gender issues, Thurber championed the idea of a federally-funded conservatory and was very pointed about the fact that the United States was the only industrialized nation that did not provide government monies for the arts. Thurber "precipitated public debate over the appropriateness of

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1140-537: A year, as of the 2017–2018 season. In February 2018, Nézet-Séguin succeeded Levine as music director of the Metropolitan Opera. In August 2024, the company announced the extension of Nézet-Séguin's contract as its music director through the 2029–2030 season. In 2017, Daniele Rustioni first guest-conducted at the Metropolitan Opera. In November 2024, the company announced the appointment of Rustioni as its next principal guest conductor, effective with

1235-466: Is dependent on private financing. Gelb began his tenure by opening the 2006–07 season with a production of Madama Butterfly by the English director Anthony Minghella originally staged for English National Opera. Minghella's highly theatrical concept featured vividly colored banners on a spare stage, allowing the focus to be on the detailed acting of the singers. The abstract concept included casting

1330-533: The Boston Symphony . But the Conservatory seemed to be her real love, and she grew it from 84 students when it opened to 3,000 students in 1900. Her success was due, in part, to her conviction that her school required an outstanding and publicly-celebrated faculty: its first director was Jacques Bouhy, a world-renowned baritone. In 1892, she was responsible for bringing the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák to

1425-469: The Edinburgh Festival . Serving from 1950 to 1972, Bing became one of the Met's most influential and reformist leaders. Bing modernized the administration of the company, ended an archaic ticket sales system, and brought an end to the company's Tuesday night performances in Philadelphia. He presided over an era of fine singing and glittering new productions, while guiding the company's move to

1520-561: The Mapleson Cylinders , preserve an audio picture of the early Met, and are the only known extant recordings of some performers, including the tenor Jean de Reszke and the dramatic soprano Milka Ternina. The recordings were later issued on a series of LPs and, in 2002, were included in the National Recording Registry . Beginning in 1898, the Metropolitan Opera company of singers and musicians undertook

1615-525: The Minimalism of the late 20th and 21st centuries. These operas are presented in staged productions that range in style from those with elaborate traditional decors to others that feature modern conceptual designs. The Met's performing company consists of a large symphony orchestra, a chorus, children's choir, and many supporting and leading solo singers. The company also employs numerous free-lance dancers, actors, musicians and other performers throughout

1710-470: The Upper West Side of Manhattan . Referred to colloquially as "the Met" , the company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as the general manager. The company's music director has been Yannick Nézet-Séguin since 2018. The Met was founded in 1883 as an alternative to the previously established Academy of Music opera house and debuted the same year in

1805-431: The 1933–34 season. Called the committee to Save Metropolitan Opera, the group was headed by the well-loved leading soprano, Lucrezia Bori . Bori not only led the committee, but also personally carried out much of its work and within a few months her fundraising efforts produced the $ 300,000 that were needed for the coming season. In April 1935, Gatti stepped down after 27 years as general manager. His immediate successor,

1900-684: The Fall 1930–31 season to disappear. The American Opera Company won an official endorsement from President Herbert Hoover in February 1930 in a letter to the Speaker of the House, calling for it to become "a permanent national institution", but Presidential support was not enough as the country sank further into the Great Depression. Among the company's last performances were a two week run at

1995-582: The MOA to create the Metropolitan Opera National Company (MONC); a second touring company that would present operas nationally with young operatic talent. Supported by President John F. Kennedy and funded largely by donations given by philanthropist and publisher Lila Acheson Wallace , the company presented two seasons of operas in 1965–1966 and 1966–1967 in which hundreds of performances were given in hundreds of cities throughout

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2090-485: The Met board's Eleanor Robson Belmont , the former actress and wife to industrialist August Belmont , was appointed head of a new organization—the Metropolitan Opera Guild—as successor to a women's club Belmont had set up. The Guild supported the producing company through subscriptions to its magazine, Opera News , and through Mrs. Belmont's weekly appeals on the Met's radio broadcasts. In 1940 ownership of

2185-738: The Met considerably expanded its repertory, offering four world premiers and 22 Met premiers, more new works than under any manager since Gatti-Casazza. Volpe chose Valery Gergiev , who was then the chief conductor and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre , as Principal Guest Conductor in 1997 and broadened the Met's Russian repertory. Marcelo Álvarez , Gabriela Beňačková , Diana Damrau , Natalie Dessay , Renée Fleming , Juan Diego Flórez , Marcello Giordani , Angela Gheorghiu , Susan Graham , Ben Heppner , Dmitri Hvorostovsky , Salvatore Licitra , Anna Netrebko , René Pape , Neil Rosenshein , Bryn Terfel , and Deborah Voigt were among

2280-623: The Met during Bing's tenure include: Roberta Peters , Victoria de los Ángeles , Renata Tebaldi , Maria Callas , who had a bitter falling out with Bing over repertoire, , Birgit Nilsson , Joan Sutherland , Régine Crespin , Mirella Freni , Renata Scotto , Montserrat Caballé , Elisabeth Schwarzkopf , Anna Moffo , James McCracken , Carlo Bergonzi , Franco Corelli , Alfredo Kraus , Plácido Domingo , Nicolai Gedda , Luciano Pavarotti , Jon Vickers , Tito Gobbi , Sherrill Milnes , and Cesare Siepi . The Met's 1961 production of Turandot , with Leopold Stokowski conducting, Birgit Nilsson in

2375-431: The Met found new controversy with a production of John Adams 's opera The Death of Klinghoffer , due to criticism that the work was antisemitic. In response to the controversy Gelb canceled the scheduled worldwide HD video presentation of a performance, but refused demands to cancel the live performances scheduled for October and November 2014. Demonstrators held signs and chanted "Shame on Gelb". On April 14, 2016,

2470-413: The Met from 1896 to 1903. The early 1900s saw the development of distinct Italian, German and later French "wings" within the Met's roster of artists including separate German and Italian choruses. This division of the company's forces faded after World War II when solo artists spent less time engaged at any one company. The administration of Heinrich Conried in 1903–08 was distinguished especially by

2565-478: The Met in 1891 in a glittering season of stars organized by the returning Henry E. Abbey, John B. Schoeffel and Maurice Grau as Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau . After missing a season to rebuild the opera house following a fire in August 1892 which destroyed most of the theater, Abbey and Grau continued as co-managers along with John Schoeffel as the business partner, initiating the so-called "Golden Age of Opera". Most of

2660-457: The Met in 1973 as Desdemona in Verdi 's Otello , the same role she debuted there in 1955. From 1975 to 1981 the Met was guided by a triumvirate of directors: the general manager (Anthony A. Bliss), artistic director ( James Levine ), and director of production (English stage director John Dexter ). Bliss was followed by Bruce Crawford and Hugh Southern . Through this period the constant figure

2755-520: The Met's current stars as well as appearances by 26 veteran stars of the Met's the past. Among the artists, Leonard Bernstein and Birgit Nilsson gave their last performances with the company at the concert. This season also marked the debut of bass Samuel Ramey , who debuted as Argante in Handel's Rinaldo in January 1984. The immediate post-Bing era saw a continuing addition of African-Americans to

2850-498: The Met's directors turned to Leopold Damrosch as general manager. The revered conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra was engaged to lead the opera company in an all German language repertory and serve as its chief conductor. Under Damrosch, the company consisted of some the most celebrated singers from Europe's German-language opera houses. The new German Met found great popular and critical success in

2945-407: The Met's own SiriusXM radio channel. In 2010, the company named Fabio Luisi as its principal guest conductor in 2010, and subsequently its principal conductor in 2011, to fill a void created by Levine's two-year absence because of illness. In 2013, following the severance of the dancers' contracts, Gelb announced that the resident ballet company at the Met would cease to exist. In 2014, Gelb and

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3040-694: The Met's own original productions. Theater directors Bartlett Sher , Mary Zimmerman , and Jack O'Brien joined the list of the Met's directors along with Stephen Wadsworth, Willy Decker, Laurent Pelly , Luc Bondy and other opera directors to create new stagings for the company. Robert Lepage , the Canadian director of Cirque du Soleil , was engaged by the Met to direct a revival of Der Ring des Nibelungen using hydraulic stage platforms and projected 3D imagery. To further engage new audiences Gelb initiated live high-definition video transmissions to cinemas worldwide, and regular live satellite radio broadcasts on

3135-506: The Met's principal conductor (but with no official title) from 1908 to 1915, leading the company in performances of Verdi, Wagner and others that set standards for the company for decades to come. The Viennese composer Gustav Mahler also was a Met conductor during Gatti-Casazza's first two seasons and in later years conductors Tullio Serafin and Artur Bodanzky led the company in the Italian and German repertories respectively. Following Toscanini's departure, Gatti-Casazza successfully guided

3230-617: The Met's regular visits ceased. On April 26, 1910, the Met purchased the Philadelphia Opera House from Oscar Hammerstein I . The company renamed the house the Metropolitan Opera House and performed all of their Philadelphia performances there until 1920, when the company sold the theater and resumed performing at the Academy of Music. During the Met's early years, the company annually presented

3325-528: The Met's wealthy supporters had significantly declined. Soon after his appointment, Cravath obtained new revenue through a contract with the National Broadcasting Company for weekly radio broadcasts of Met performances. The first national broadcast took place December 25, 1931, when Hansel and Gretel was aired. With Gatti's support, Cravath also obtained a ten percent reduction in the pay of all salaried employees beginning with

3420-837: The Metropolitan Opera to a prolonged era of artistic innovation and musical excellence. He brought with him the fiery and brilliant conductor Arturo Toscanini , the music director from his seasons at La Scala. Many of the most noted singers of the era appeared at the Met under Gatti-Casazza's leadership, including sopranos Rosa Ponselle , Elisabeth Rethberg , Maria Jeritza , Emmy Destinn , Frances Alda , Frida Leider , Amelita Galli-Curci , Bernice de Pasquali , and Lily Pons ; tenors Jacques Urlus , Giovanni Martinelli , Beniamino Gigli , Giacomo Lauri-Volpi , and Lauritz Melchior ; baritones Titta Ruffo , Giuseppe De Luca , Pasquale Amato , and Lawrence Tibbett ; and basses Friedrich Schorr , Feodor Chaliapin , Jose Mardones, Tancredi Pasero and Ezio Pinza —among many others. Toscanini served as

3515-710: The New American Opera Company from members of the failed venture, with the addition of several leading artists. In 1924, a professional touring opera company emerged from the innovative productions of Vladimir Rosing and Rouben Mamoulian at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. Its mission was to perform operas in English to popular audiences nationwide. First known as the Rochester American Opera Company,

3610-892: The Swedish opera manager Göran Gentele , died in an auto accident before the start of his first season. Following Gentele's tragic loss came Schuyler Chapin , who served as general manager for three seasons. The greatest achievement of his tenure was the Met's first tour to Japan for three weeks in May–June 1975 which was the brainchild of impresario Kazuko Hillyer . The tour played a significant role in popularizing opera in Japan, and boasted an impressive line-up of artists in productions of La traviata , Carmen , and La bohème ; including Marilyn Horne as Carmen, Joan Sutherland as Violetta, and tenors Franco Corelli and Luciano Pavarotti alternating as Rodolfo. Soprano Renata Tebaldi retired from

3705-555: The United States to head her conservatory, where he remained until 1895. Dvořák, who refused her offer several times, was ultimately persuaded by his wife, Anna Dvorak, when she learned of the staggering annual salary of $ 15,000, which was 25 times his current income. He was to receive four months' summer leave in exchange for three hours of daily teaching and six annual concerts. It was there that he met 26-year-old African-American student Harry Burleigh . Burleigh, who mopped floors to pay for his tuition, sang spirituals as he worked and drew

3800-1075: The United States. Bing publicly supported the organization, but privately detested the idea and actively worked to dismantle the company which he ultimately achieved in a vote of the board in December 1966. The MONC's directors were mezzo-soprano Risë Stevens and Michael Manuel , a long time stage manager and director at the Met. Several well known opera singers performed with the MONC, including sopranos Clarice Carson , Maralin Niska , Mary Beth Peil , Francesca Roberto , and Marilyn Zschau ; mezzo-sopranos Joy Davidson , Sylvia Friederich, Dorothy Krebill, and Huguette Tourangeau ; tenors Enrico Di Giuseppe , Chris Lachona, Nicholas di Virgilio, and Harry Theyard ; baritones Ron Bottcher , John Fiorito , Thomas Jamerson , Julian Patrick , and Vern Shinall; bass-baritones Andrij Dobriansky , Ronald Hedlund, and Arnold Voketaitis ; and bass Paul Plishka . During Bing's tenure,

3895-551: The academy's limited number of private boxes represented the highest stratum in New York society. By 1880, these " old money " families were loath to admit New York's newly wealthy industrialists into their long-established social circle. Frustrated with being excluded, the Metropolitan Opera's founding subscribers determined to build a new opera house that would outshine the old Academy in every way. A group of 22 men assembled at Delmonico's restaurant on April 28, 1880. They elected officers and established subscriptions for ownership in

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3990-532: The arrival of the Neapolitan tenor Enrico Caruso , the most celebrated singer who ever appeared at the old Metropolitan. He was also instrumental in hiring conductor Arturo Vigna . Conried was followed by Giulio Gatti-Casazza , who held a 27-year tenure from 1908 to 1935. Gatti-Casazza had been lured by the Met from a celebrated tenure as director of Milan's La Scala Opera House . His model planning, authoritative organizational skills and brilliant casts raised

4085-479: The artists first heard at the Met under his management. He retired as general manager in 2006. Joseph Volpe's post was given to Peter Gelb , formerly a record producer. Gelb began outlining his plans in April 2006; these included more new productions each year, ideas for shaving staging costs, and attracting new audiences without deterring existing opera-lovers. Gelb saw these issues as crucial for an organization which

4180-415: The broadcasts and savings from both salary cuts and reorganization were not sufficient to cover the company's deficits. Representatives of the opera house, the producing company, and the artists formed a committee for fundraising among the public at large. Mainly though appeals made to radio audiences during the weekly broadcasts, the committee was able to obtain enough money to assure continuation of opera for

4275-553: The city's Academy of Vocal Arts . Its first performance, of Mozart 's Die Entführung aus dem Serail with an English libretto , was at the Academy on October 24, 1946. Adelaide Bishop , James Pease , and Léopold Simoneau took major roles. It closed in 1950. Jeannette Thurber Jeannette Thurber (also known as Jeannette Meyers Thurber ; January 29, 1850 in Delhi, New York – January 2, 1946 in Bronxville, New York )

4370-435: The colleges and conservatories of this country. Its achievements resulted from the endeavors of a single visionary: Jeannette M Thurber, a wealthy, idealistic New Yorker who devoted most of her life to the school ... Although her innovative design for the Conservatory was influential in shaping the course of American music for the 20th century, Mrs. Thurber and her school have slipped into undeserved obscurity." Jeannette Meyers

4465-450: The company announced the conclusion of James Levine's tenure as music director at the conclusion of the 2015–16 season. Gelb announced that Levine would also become Music Director Emeritus. On June 2, the Met board announced the appointment of Yannick Nézet-Séguin as the company's next music director, as of the 2020–2021 season, conducting five productions each season. He took the title of music director-designate, conducting two productions

4560-525: The company subsequently premiered several works composed by American composers, including The Sunset Trail by Charles Wakefield Cadman , The Legend of the Piper by Eleanor Everest Freer , and Yolanda of Cyprus by Clarence Loomis . Three ambitious North American tours were completed, with the opera company performing in 42 cities across the United States and Canada, but the Crash of 1929 caused bookings for

4655-504: The company through the years of World War I into another decade of premieres, new productions and popular success in the 1920s. The 1930s, however, brought new financial and organizational challenges for the company. In 1931, Otto Kahn , the noted financier, resigned as head of the Met's board of directors and president of the Metropolitan Opera Company. He had been responsible for engaging Gatti-Casazza and had held

4750-615: The company was known as the American Opera Company. The American Opera Company strictly adhered to a non-star policy, developing instead a unity of ensemble whereby a singer might have a leading role one night and a supporting role the next. A number of important singers emerged from the company, including future Metropolitan Opera stars John Gurney (bass-baritone) , Helen Oelheim , Thelma Votipka , Charles Kullman , Nancy McCord and Gladys Swarthout . Future 1930s Broadway stars Natalie Hall and Bettina Hall were also among

4845-476: The company was reorganized in December 1886 under a new name, the "National Opera Company". A second season followed, notable for the American premiere of Rubinstein 's Nero on March 14, 1887, and for a national tour that took the company across the continent as far as San Francisco, dogged along the way by increasing financial difficulties. Singers and stage hands began to strike and sue for unpaid wages, and by

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4940-478: The evening Monday through Saturday with a matinée on Saturday. Several operas are presented in new productions each season. Sometimes these are borrowed from or shared with other opera companies. The rest of the year's operas are given in revivals of productions from previous seasons. The 2015–16 season comprised 227 performances of 25 operas. The operas in the Met's repertoire consist of a wide range of works, from 18th-century Baroque and 19th-century Bel canto to

5035-585: The famous Casino Theatre on Broadway just before the beloved New York theater's demolition in early 1930. Sidor Belarsky founded the American Opera Company of Los Angeles which staged its first opera, Boris Godunov , at the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles in July 1934. It was officially incorporated the following September. The company repeated Boris Godunov in April 1935 at

5130-534: The first American performance of The Taming of the Shrew by Hermann Goetz , and 13 other productions followed, for a total of 126 individual performances. The repertoire included Verdi 's Aida , Wagner 's Lohengrin and The Flying Dutchman , and Gounod 's Faust , all sung in English translation. Performances in New York took place in the Academy of Music and the old Metropolitan Opera House , and during

5225-443: The first season the company also performed on tour in Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and St. Louis. In August, they announced an ambitious plan to travel to Paris, a trip that never came about. Although the productions were, by and large, a critical success, money quickly became a problem. Faced with a large operating deficit, Carnegie and other sponsors began to separate themselves from the project, and in order to escape its creditors

5320-562: The formation of the Northern Ohio Opera Association led by future U.S. Senator Robert J. Bulkley with the express purpose of underwriting long-term touring contracts with the Met. Cleveland was a particular lucrative stop for the Met, which had no competition in the form of a local opera company, and performances were held in the enormous Public Auditorium, which sat well over 9,000 people. The Met's national tours continued until 1986. Italian opera returned to

5415-487: The former Met bass Herbert Witherspoon , died of a heart attack barely six weeks into his term of office. This opened the way for the Canadian tenor and former Met artist Edward Johnson to be appointed general manager. Johnson served the company for the next 15 years, guiding the Met through the remaining years of the depression and the World War II era. The producing company's financial difficulties continued in

5510-652: The greatest operatic artists in the world then graced the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House in Italian as well as German and French repertory. Notable among them were the brothers Jean and Édouard de Reszke , Lilli Lehmann , Emma Calvé , Lillian Nordica , Nellie Melba , Marcella Sembrich , Milka Ternina , Emma Eames , Sofia Scalchi , Ernestine Schumann-Heink , Francesco Tamagno , Francesc Viñas , Jean Lassalle, Mario Ancona , Victor Maurel , Antonio Scotti and Pol Plançon . Henry Abbey died in 1896, and Maurice Grau continued as sole manager of

5605-466: The group made its New York City debut in April 1927 at the Guild Theatre. It won the support of many wealthy and influential backers, including financier Otto Kahn , opera stars Mary Garden and Marcella Sembrich , and socialite Edith Rockefeller McCormick . By the time the company performed for President Coolidge and 150 members of Congress at Washington D.C.'s Poli's Theater in December 1927,

5700-589: The interest of Dvorak. Burleigh's rendering of African-American spirituals had a profound effect on Dvorak's compositions and served as the basis for one of his best-known symphonies, (with a title suggested by Thurber, it is said), "From the New World". Dvorak said, "In the Negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music." Burleigh went on to assist Dvorak in copying sections of his work as his amanuensis, and ultimately became

5795-487: The management skills of the labor negotiator, and a profound dedication to music education—qualities that mark her, even to this day, as one of the most intelligent, effective patrons ever to take a stand for American music". Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera is an American opera company based in New York City, currently resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center , situated on

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5890-490: The many home grown artists to become stars at the Met in the 1940s. Ettore Panizza , Sir Thomas Beecham , George Szell and Bruno Walter were among the leading conductors engaged during Johnson's tenure. Kurt Adler began his long tenure as chorus master and staff conductor in 1943. Succeeding Johnson in 1950 was the Austrian-born Rudolf Bing who had most recently created and served as director of

5985-531: The most eminent scenic artists in America". Although based in New York City, it was intended as a national company that toured throughout the United States, with the goal of increasing American appreciation for opera by offering productions in English, by American performers, at affordable ticket prices. A succinct statement of Thurber's vision for the company appeared in the New York Times in August 1886, which reported that in her view "the true conception of

6080-492: The new Rockefeller Center . The plan was dropped in 1929 when it became apparent that it would produce no savings, and because the Met did not have enough money to move to a new opera house. It soon became apparent that the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and subsequent depression had resulted in a dangerously large deficit in the company's accounts. Between 1929 and 1931 ticket sales remained robust, but subsidies from

6175-549: The new Manhattan opera house, but also started a long tradition of touring throughout the country. In the winter and spring of 1884 the Met presented opera in theaters in Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia (see below), Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Washington D.C., and Baltimore. Back in New York, the last night of the season featured a long gala performance to benefit Mr. Abbey. The special program consisted not only of various scenes from opera, but also offered Marcella Sembrich playing

6270-502: The new company. The new theater, built at 39th and Broadway , would include three tiers of private boxes in which the scions of New York's powerful new industrial families could display their wealth and establish their social prominence. The first subscribers included members of the Morgan , Roosevelt , and Vanderbilt families, all of whom had been excluded from the academy. The new Metropolitan Opera House opened on October 22, 1883, and

6365-790: The officers of the Met joined forces with the officers of the New York Philharmonic to build the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts , where the new Metropolitan Opera House building opened in 1966. The Met's first season at Lincoln Center featured nine new productions, including the world premiere of Marvin David Levy 's Mourning Becomes Electra . However, the company would not premiere any new operas for decades afterwards, until 1991's The Ghosts of Versailles by John Corigliano . One critic described

6460-400: The opera season of 1931/32. Cravath also engineered a reorganization of the management company by which it was transformed from a corporation, in which all participants were stockholders, to an association, whose members need not have a financial interest in operations. Apart from this change, the new Metropolitan Opera Association was virtually identical to the old Metropolitan Opera Company. It

6555-477: The other hand, her school was written out of the record of musical history well before the doors had even closed. "It is conspicuously absent from Elson's National Music of America , written in 1899, nor is there any reference to it in Waldo Selden Pratt's 1909 History of Music , yet the school was still advertising nationally and enrolling hundreds of students." Scholars suggest it could be because

6650-589: The performing company and the opera house was transferred to the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association from the company's original partnership of New York society families. Zinka Milanov , Jussi Björling , and Alexander Kipnis were first heard at the Met under Johnson's management. During World War II when many European artists were unavailable, the Met recruited American singers as never before. Eleanor Steber , Dorothy Kirsten , Helen Traubel (Flagstad's successor as Wagner's heroines), Jan Peerce , Richard Tucker , Leonard Warren and Robert Merrill were among

6745-416: The period as "a quarter-century in which the notion of commissioned work reminded Met administrators of the emblematic failure of Samuel Barber 's Antony and Cleopatra and the lukewarm reception of Marvin David Levy's Mourning Becomes Electra ." Following Bing's retirement in 1972, the Met's management was overseen by a succession of executives and artists in shared authority. Bing's intended successor,

6840-424: The position of president since the beginning of Gatti-Casazza's term as manager. The new chair, prominent lawyer Paul Cravath , had served as the board's legal counsel. Retaining Gatti-Casazza as manager, Cravath focused his attention on managing the business affairs of the company. In 1926, as part of the construction of Rockefeller Center , a plan was floated to move the opera from the building on 39th Street to

6935-498: The principals, as was Hollywood's George Houston (actor) . The company was known for the youth and attractiveness of its performers. During January and February 1928 the American Opera Company brought seven weeks of opera to Broadway at New York's Gallo Opera House , including a notable adaptation of Faust with a new libretto by music critic for The New Yorker Robert A. Simon and sets by designer Robert Edmond Jones . In addition to new English productions of familiar operas,

7030-586: The roster of leading artists. Kathleen Battle , who in 1977 made her Met debut as the Shepherd in Wagner's Tannhäuser , became an important star in lyric soprano roles. Bass-baritone Simon Estes began a prominent Met career with his 1982 debut as Hermann, also in Tannhäuser . The model of General Manager as the leading authority in the company returned in 1990 when the company appointed Joseph Volpe . He

7125-751: The same theatre. Baritone Stephen Douglass portrayed the title role in Eugene Onegin with the company in September 1935. The American Opera Company in Trenton, New Jersey was founded in 1937 by conductor H. Maurice Jacquet . It gave just two performances of Benjamin Godard 's comic opera La Vivandière that year starring Josepha Chekova ; one at the Robin Hood Dell in Philadelphia. before disbanding. The American Opera Company of Chicago

7220-481: The school had been pigeon-holed as being "specifically successful in helping students of foreign birth and certain special classes, like the blind and those of Negro blood". Or because the orchestra had a "a sprinkling of girls", as the New York Evening Post reported in 1899. Thurber lived to be almost 96, dying in 1946 as a woman who "combined her love of music with an entrepreneurial imagination,

7315-438: The school, she sponsored competitions for American musicians to develop American music. The National Conservatory of Music of America was the outstanding institution for professional musical preparation in the United States for some 25 years or more. At its height in the 1890s it boasted a faculty of international renown ... and initiated a course of studies whose features became a basis for the curriculum now taken for granted in

7410-510: The season. The Met's roster of singers includes both international and American artists, some of whose careers have been developed through the Met's young artists programs. While many singers appear periodically as guests with the company, others maintain a close long-standing association with the Met, appearing many times each season until they retire. The Metropolitan Opera Company was founded in 1883 as an alternative to New York's old established Academy of Music opera house. The subscribers to

7505-420: The son of Cio-Cio San as a bunraku -style puppet, operated in plain sight by three puppeteers clothed in black. Gelb focused on expanding the Met's audience through a number of fronts. Increasing the number of new productions every season to keep the Met's stagings fresh and noteworthy, Gelb partnered with other opera companies to import productions and engaged directors from theater, circus, and film to produce

7600-427: The spring of 1887 the company was the subject of at least seven lawsuits. The director, Theodore Thomas, who later attributed the demise of the company to "inexperienced and misdirected enthusiasm in business management, and to misapplication of money", left on June 15, 1887, and after one final performance without him, Thurber's operatic experiment came to an end. However, the new musical director, Gustav Hinrichs, formed

7695-493: The title role, and Franco Corelli as Calàf, was called the Met's "biggest hit in 10 years". For the 1962/1963 season, Renata Tebaldi , popular with Met audiences, convinced a reluctant Bing to stage a revival of Adriana Lecouvreur , an opera last presented at the Met in 1907. In 1963, Anthony Bliss, a prominent New York lawyer and president of the Metropolitan Opera Association (MOA), convinced

7790-503: The violin and the piano, as well as the famed stage actors Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in a scene from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice . Abbey's inaugural season resulted in very large financial deficits. The Metropolitan Opera began a long history of performing in Philadelphia during its first season, presenting its entire repertoire in the city during January and April 1884. The company's first Philadelphia performance

7885-576: The works of Wagner and other German composers as well as in Italian and French operas sung in German. Damrosch died only months into his first season at the Met. Edmund Stanton replaced Damrosch the following year and served as general manager through the 1890–91 season. The Met's six German seasons were especially noted for performances by the celebrated conductor Anton Seidl whose Wagner interpretations were noted for their almost mystical intensity. The conductor Walter Damrosch , Leopold's son, also initiated

7980-485: The years immediately following the desperate season of 1933–34. To meet budget shortfalls, fundraising continued and the number of performances was curtailed. Still, on given nights the brilliant Wagner pairing of the Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad with the great heldentenor Lauritz Melchior proved irresistible to audiences even in such troubled times. To expand the Met's support among its national radio audience,

8075-494: Was 1885—two decades since the end of the American Civil War —and her school was racially integrated, promoted women, and had an inclusive stance toward the handicapped. Thurber founded the school in part because of her belief that a nation should cultivate its own unique music—an unusual stance when the prevailing attitude was that all cultured art, especially orchestral music, came from Germany or Italy. While running

8170-539: Was James Levine. Engaged by Bing in 1971, Levine became principal conductor in 1973 and emerged as the Met's principal artistic leader through the last third of the 20th century. During the 1983–84 season the Met celebrated its 100th anniversary with an opening night revival of Berlioz's mammoth opera Les Troyens , with soprano Jessye Norman making her Met debut in the roles of both Cassandra and Dido. An eight-hour Centennial Gala concert in two parts followed on October 22, 1983, broadcast on PBS . The gala featured all of

8265-488: Was a founding patron of Thurber's Conservatory though some research suggests that other than a small amount from L. Horton and Andrew Carnegie, Thurber is the only one who contributed financial backing.) Thurber's continuing difficulties in securing funding for her school—either public or private—and her flagging energy as she grew older, contributed to the demise of the school, but her success did as well: music schools started springing up, competing for faculty and students. On

8360-457: Was amongst the first major patrons of classical music in the United States. Thurber established the National Conservatory of Music of America in 1885—the first of its kind and an endeavor that some say ushered in the first orchestral music with a distinctively American sound. But in a very radical stance for the day, Thurber championed the rights of women, people of color and the handicapped to attend her school, sometimes on full scholarship. This

8455-409: Was an immediate success, both socially and artistically. The Academy of Music's opera season folded just three years after the Met opened. In its early decades the Met did not produce the opera performances itself but hired prominent manager/ impresarios to stage a season of opera at the new Metropolitan Opera House . Henry Abbey served as manager for the inaugural season, 1883–84, which opened with

8550-529: Was founded in 1938 with the goal of developing young American singers and providing them opportunities to perform in operas. It was co-founded by E. C. McCarthy and Anna Del Preda. The company's first performance was a double bill of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci which was given on February 25, 1938 at the Chicago Auditorium . The American Opera Company in Philadelphia was founded in 1946 by conductor Vernon Hammond , musical director of

8645-561: Was hoped the association would be able to save money as it renegotiated contracts which the company had made. During this period there was no change in the organization of the Metropolitan Real Estate Opera Company which owned the opera house . It remained in the hands of the society families who owned its stock, yet the subsidies that the house and its owners had given the producing company fell off. In March 1932, Cravath found that income resulting from

8740-500: Was of Faust (with Christina Nilsson) on January 14, 1884, at the Chestnut Street Opera House . The Met continued to perform annually in Philadelphia for nearly eighty years, taking the entire company to the city on selected Tuesday nights throughout the opera season. Performances were usually held at Philadelphia's Academy of Music , with the company presenting close to 900 performances in the city by 1961 when

8835-422: Was the Met's third-longest serving manager, and was the first head of the Met to advance from within the ranks of the company after having started his career there as a carpenter in 1964. During his tenure the Met's international touring activities were expanded and Levine focused on expanding and building the Met's orchestra into a world-class symphonic ensemble with its own Carnegie Hall concert series. Under Volpe

8930-576: Was the daughter of Henry Meyers, an immigrant violinist from Copenhagen , Denmark, and Annamarie Coffin Price. She was educated at the Paris Conservatory , which inspired her to advocate for government funding of her school, as was done in France. On September 15, 1869, at the age of 19, she married Francis Beatty Thurber (Delhi, November 13, 1842 – Manhattan, July 4, 1907), who would later become

9025-434: Was the opening of the Met's artistic roster to include singers of color. Marian Anderson 's historic 1955 debut was followed by the introduction of a gifted generation of African American artists led by Leontyne Price (who inaugurated the new house at Lincoln Center), Reri Grist , Grace Bumbry , Shirley Verrett , Martina Arroyo , George Shirley , Robert McFerrin , and many others. Other celebrated singers who debuted at

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