American Opera 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.

[4] 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.

[3][7] A second season followed, notable for the American premiere of Rubinstein's Nero on March 14, 1887,[5][2] 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.

[3][8] 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,[2] and after one final performance without him, Thurber's operatic experiment came to an end.

[9] 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.

[10][11] 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.

[12] 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.

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 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.

[20] It gave just two performances of Benjamin Godard's comic opera La Vivandière that year starring Josepha Chekova;[21] one at the Robin Hood Dell in Philadelphia.