Three World Premieres of Grand Opera

A dispute between Theodore Thomas and George Ward Nichols caused Nichols to withdraw from the May Festivals and inaugurate several seasons of Opera Festivals which were widely acclaimed and well received in the Queen City. Three World Premieres of Grand Opera by Joseph E. Holliday n the evening of August 29, 1910 Music Hall resounded to the enthusias- O tic applause of forty-eight curtain calls at the premiere performance of the opera Paoletta. Again and again the audience acknowledged the members of the cast and the composer-conductor, Pietro Floridia. While the performance was good, the extraordinary number of curtain calls was also an indica- tion of the pride of the local citizenry in the musical grounding of their city. The initial impulse in 1875 for a music auditorium had come from the highly successful Saengerfests and May Choral festivals. The new auditorium, dedicated in 1878, was destined for wider use by the other performing arts. It was never reserved exclusively for music. The musical activities of the community at that time not only had vigorous and able leadership, they produced bitter rivalries as well. Out of a dispute between Theodore Thomas, the musical director of the May Festival, and Colonel George Ward Nichols, the president of the College of Music, the latter withdrew from the management of the May festivals and inaugurated several seasons of widely acclaimed Opera Fes- tivals. Thus, within three years of the hall's dedication the first of numerous opera seasons was held at Music Hall. For these opera presentations the interior of Music Hall was temporarily altered to correspond to the traditional opera house, with a proscenium, or- chestral pit, and an elevated floor. The absence of stage boxes in the original auditorium was remedied by building temporary ones with plush decor in red satin and gold. Thus, for three seasons a true ambiance for opera was pro- vided. The performances were equally superb. The cast of the operas during those seasons included most of the great names singing in opera at that time — Minna Hauk, Etelka Gerster, Maria Sebani, and Christine Nilsson. But of the entire list, perhaps the best known was Adelina Patti whose performances always created tense expectations and many thrills.1 The artistic and social brilliance of the Opera Festivals of the 1880's was probably not equaled for their high level performances until the annual visits of the Metropolitan Opera Company to Cincinnati around the turn of the century. The nine visits of the American Company followed a major permanent renovation of Music Hall in 1895. During this renovation a gallery was added in the hall, the stage deepened, a permanent proscenium built, and comfort- 117 able upholstered seats installed.2 Cincinnati music lovers again had the op- portunity to hear the best operatic voices. It was the Golden Age of the Metropolitan Company and Music Hall resounded to voices that have become legendary in operatic annals—Enrico Caruso, Emma Eames, Marcella Sem- brich, Louise Homer, Johanna Gadski, and many others.3 Nearly all of these had recorded for the well known "Red Seal" records of the Victrola Company. A fortunate set of circumstances in 1920 enabled Cincinnati to have its own Summer Opera at the zoo. Its home remained at the Zoological Gardens until 1972 when it was transferred to Music Hall. During its long existence the Summer Opera developed a relationship with the Chicago Lyric Opera Company. The director of the Cincinnati company Isaac Van Grove, who succeeded Ralph Lyford, also directed the Chicago company. Not only did some of its principal soloists sing for the Cincinnati summer seasons at the zoo, but the Chicago Opera Company always visited the city on its winter tours in the 1920's. On these visits Cincinnati opera-goers often heard two of the foremost opera stars of that age, Mary Garden and the great Russian basso, Feodor Chalipin. Music Hall audiences enjoyed both the Boris Gudinov of the latter and the famous Thais of the former.4 These few references to over a half century of opera at Music Hall indicate the existence of a sizeable audience in the community interested in grand opera; the presence of a large number of students at the two musical institu- tions in the city strengthened this lively local interest in grand opera. Over the ensuing years this interest led to the production of at least three world premieres of grand opera at Music Hall. Each produced on a lavish scale, under quite differing patronage; each well received but never gaining ad- mission to the permanent repertory of opera companies. In the production of the first of the three, Paoletta, it was the Cincinnati Industrial Exposition Trustees who commissioned the opera. Cincinnati had a long tradition of excellent industrial expositions. In 1910 the Fall Exposition was to commemorate the settlement of the Ohio Valley. The Board of Trustees wished to call attention not only to the industrial and commercial products of Cincinnati but to its musical heritage as well. The Board's membership included Robert R. Reynolds, James P. Orr of the Potter Shoe Company, P. Lincoln Mitchell, attorney, Frank Herschede, jeweler, Julius Fleischmann, and Aaron L. Stix, all of whom were prominent business leaders. It commissioned a grand opera for presentation during the exposition. His- torians of opera claimed that this was the first instance in the United States that a municipality commissioned an operatic work for the celebration of an historical event.5 The composer chosen to write this opera was an Italian-American musician, pianist, and teacher, Pietro Floridia, who had served on the faculty of the Cincinnati College of Music shortly after immigrating to the United States. He had been successful as a composer of opera and symphonic works in Italy.6 118 For his librettist Floridia chose Paul Jones, a Cincinnati artist and pageant director.7 Jones had sketched out a novel, The Sacred Mirror, and he used a se- quence of episodes from this unpublished manuscript for the libretto.8 For the male lead, they secured David Bispham, the foremost American-born vo- calist of his time; Bernice di Pasquali also American-born sang the part of the heroine, Paoletta. Both were members of the Metropolitan Opera Company. After creating their roles they were relieved from time to time by Herman Gantvoort and Edna Showalter, two well known local singers. There was a chorus of 140 persons, all of them drawn from the May Festival chorus, a corps de ballet of fifteen imported from New York, and an orchestra of fifty- three members of the Cincinnati Symphony. Expenses were not pinched; the project reflected favorably on the musical attainments of the community. Twenty-nine performances of the opera were given. The Exposition itself received national attention since President William Howard Taft opened the spectacle and ex-President Theodore Roosevelt with his daughter Alice and son-in-law Nicholas Longworth stopped in the city to visit it and attend a performance of the opera.9 While Paoletta was the result of pride of the industrial and commercial interests of the city in demonstrating its quality of life, the next opera which had its world premiere in the Queen City resulted from a national competition sponsored by the National Federation of Music Clubs for an opera written by an American composer. A local musician Ralph Lyford, won first place with his opera Castle Agrazant. A New Englander, Lyford had come to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in 1916 to head the opera department.10 He came with excellent cre- dentials and wide experience in producing and directing operas. He was one of those musicians who literally "lived" opera. In 1920 Lyford established the Zoo Summer opera, his lasting contribution to the musical life of Cincinnati.11 The father of the Summer Opera also served as associate director of the Cin- cinnati Symphony Orchestra and worked to maintain a strong local interest in opera by sponsoring student musical theater at the Conservatory of Music. Ralph Lyford wrote the libretto as well as composed the music for his two act, prize winning, tragedy, Castle Agrazant. The story set in medieval France at the time of the Crusades dealt with the trials of the wife of a knight who was away fighting in the Holy Land.12 At its world premiere performed at Music Hall on April 29, 1926, the opera was billed as "an American opera with an American cast, by an American composer." This period following World War I was one in which cultural nationalism was strong. There were those who believed that American music and musicians had not received their just attention and had been grossly neglected. David Bispham (1857-1921), a noted native American singer who had sung the lead in Paoletta, had been forced to study in Europe and gain experience there before being accepted in the United States. He became a strong advocate of operas in English and lent OFFICIAL HAND BOOK PRICE 25 CENTS The opera, Paoletta, written by Pietro Floridia, was the first of three world opera premieres performed in Music Hall. his influence and fortune to encourage American operatic compositions.13 Organizations with these objectives sprang up in several American cities, including Cincinnati. The Cincinnati American Opera Foundation with Mrs. George Dent Crebbs as president, Max Hirsch, secretary, and John Sage, trea- surer, came into existence in the 1920's. It was this local organization that helped fund the production of Castle Agrazant at Music Hall in 1926.14 Lyford turned to the Chicago Civic Opera Company for three principal members of his cast: Olga Forrai, Forrest Lamont (an old favorite with Sum- mer Opera audiences), and Howard Preston.

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