[1] Its founder and moving force was a minor baritone who was born in Canada as Thomas Harold Meek but who adopted the name Edouard Albion upon settling in Washington and establishing a voice studio.
The first production to feature significant professional singers was a Carmen in February 1920 with two European veterans, Belgian soprano Marguerita Sylva and Czech tenor Otakar Marák.
Other important singers who would appear with the company in succeeding years included Mabel Garrison, Jeanne Gordon, Louise Homer, Edith Mason, Pasquale Amato, George Baklanov, Edward Johnson, Giuseppi Danise, and Titta Ruffo.
Later that year, Romanian conductor George Georgescu stepped in for Jacques Samossoud, who had left the company over a contract dispute, to make his sole appearance in a US opera pit.
[3] Also, in a 1928 Die Walküre, Johanna Gadski performed in an American opera production for the first time since her departure from the Metropolitan more than a decade earlier owing to anti-German sentiment during World War I.