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The Birth of the Manhattan Opera Company

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The Birth of the Manhattan Opera Company News From VHSource, LLC Vol 11 November 2013 The Birth of the Manhattan Opera Company It was during the summer of 1904 that the sauce pan Out of Nothing Comes Success! slipped quietly, but resolutely, from the back burner to the forefront when Oscar related to son Arthur his he 1906 New York City was totally unprepared for intention to build the “largest theatre in the world.” The the Manhattan Opera Company. Everybody knew Victoria was on firm profit making ground. There was Twho Oscar Hammerstein was – he built theatres – a monthly income from the rental of both the Theatre he tried to do opera in English – he was a REAL character, Republic to David Belasco and the Lew M. Fields good for an amazing quote almost any day – he wore a top Theatre to Lew Fields. For the first time in his career, hat, old fashioned formal clothes and always had a cigar in Oscar had a positive cash flow, and he was looking to his hand or mouth, lit or unlit – he and his son Willie were build once again. See Vol 9 Sept 2013 newsletter for a the kings of vaudeville. Oh yes, everyone knew who complete discussion of the second Manhattan Opera House Oscar was! No one was prepared for the Manhattan Opera and its acoustical perfection. Company. While little is actually known of Hammerstein’s The Oscar we have met over the past few months truly acoustical designs or methods, we did run across the believed in opera for the people and because this was following description in Hammerstein biographer America, opera in English. He shunned society and the Vincent Sheean’s book: wealthy – let them go to the Metropolitan and “be seen.” All of his [Oscar’s] theatres could hold Yet, with the aid of the great soprano Lilli Lehmann who musical sound had some time on her hands before she and her husband beautifully, but returned to Germany, Oscar had produced the Lehmann Oscar himself Hammerstein Opera Company (1890) – definitely not in seems never to English since Lehmann herself sang the title role in have given any Norma. La Grand Lehman would never have sung in precise explanation English before 1900. The life of that company lasted of how he did it. exactly one week. He had also made huge headlines as he ....Arthur ... tells us that beneath the led the mad dash to produce Mascagni’s (1863-1945) hardwood floor of Cavalleria Rusticana (1892), also not in English. He then the orchestra pit disappeared from the opera scene from 1893 to 1904 while [second Manhattan he and son Arthur built five new theatres, and he and son Opera House] there Willie made the Hammerstein’s Victoria into the crown was first put down jewel of Times Square’s Vaudeville. Thus, for almost a a layer of broken decade, Oscar had clearly put being an opera impresario glass one and one- on a back burner, but he never turned off the heat. half feet deep, the whole length and width of the pit. Manhattan Opera House 311 West 34th Street 2 News From VHSource, LLC Vol 11 November 2013 Overhead, as a sounding board, was a hollow hung ceiling, Vincent Sheean, “in effect the same company played elliptical in shape, which followed the contour of the top of in London, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia.” the proscenium arch. The outside of this hollow ceiling was Keep that city alignment in mind as we move forward. edged with a hollow plaster beam about eighteen inches When the Met added German coloratura Ernestine square. ... beyond these interesting facts, we have no Schumann-Heink in 1898, the Met and Covent Garden explanation of the principles upon which Oscar operated. Perhaps some of his success was luck, but when we find the had a company which no other opera company in the same effects obtaining in nine or ten theatres we are obliged world could rival. to conclude that he [Oscar] had a special talent for this kind of architecture. However, by 1900, this Golden Age of the Met was beginning to fade, and Grau himself was in failing As the Metropolitan is cavernous and deep, he [Oscar] health. One of his managerial weaknesses was that he wanted the Manhattan to be soft and broad ... this shape concentrated solely on principal voices and neglected produced acoustical results of the first order. ... the the orchestra (which no longer boasted neither Walter Manhattan was suited to those delicate and subtle works that Damrosch nor the now deceased Anton Seidel as have to be seen in detail as well as heard ... such as Pelleas et Melisande. ... The Manhattan had almost exactly the same conductor), corps de ballet, seating capacity as the Metropolitan, but the audience chorus, and the settings seemed closer together and nearer the stage. ...he succeeded (scenery, costumes, props). He .. in the larger purpose of creating a theater where an opera had also run an extremely audience could really share in the experience of the stage. relaxed ship when it came to rehearsals. In short, the press As 1906 was to be a Hammerstein declaration of war, we began calling the Met need to set the stage a bit as to where in its existence the productions sloppy and tired. Metropolitan Opera company was by 1906. When Grau would step down in 1903 Hammerstein nemesis General and be replaced by Heinrich Manager, Edmund Stanton, Conried (1855-1909), a stepped down in 1891 he was theatrical manager with acting replaced by a joint directorship of roots and no opera experience. Heinrich Conried Maurice Grau (1849-1907) and His losing rival for the job had Henry Eugene Abbey ([1846- been Walter Damrosch. The already alienated 1896], the original manager of the Hammerstein simply got madder. In our September Metropolitan’s debut season in newsletter we shared, 1883). Unfortunately, Abbey passed away in 1896, leaving Grau Conried was an actor with no musical knowledge Maurice Grau as the General Manager. It was whatsoever, for whom Oscar had taken a huge dislike these two gentlemen who ended the during Conried’s days working for him in the old Harlem Met’s dedication to only doing opera in German. It was Opera House. Actually to say “disliked” would be then Grau who worked hard to make the Met an generous. Oscar hated the man, and to have such a man running the Metropolitan Opera Company made “taking International company, bringing such voices as Australian down the Met” a “tasty prospect” which quickly grew soprano Nellie Melba, French soprano Emma Calvé, into a driving life force within Hammerstein ... German soprano Lilli Lehman, the Polish brothers De Reskes (Jean, a tenor and Edouard, a bass), and Polish Before the 1904-1905 season, the Met had hired Italian coloratura Marcella Sembrich to sing with American tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921) and retained sopranos Emma Eames and Lillian Nordica. Marcella Sembrich, but was still being accused on occasion of being “tired.” Oscar’s impresario juices By the mid 1890s, Grau leaned so heavily on the Opera were beginning to bubble in anticipation. He set out not Company at Covent Garden (London) that they moved only to build the largest opera house in the world, but whole productions back and forth across the Atlantic. this time, before ground was even broken, in a rare From the beginning, the Met had always been a touring Oscar move, the impresario set out way ahead of time company so that, according to Hammerstein biographer to build the world’s best International opera company. 3 News From VHSource, LLC Vol 11 November 2013 No mention of opera in English this time, the man simply La Scala to want to come to an unknown “beginning” went on a hunt for the best singers in the world. opera company in America of all places. Interestingly, both men were born in Parma, Italy and both men were With Arthur firmly in control of building the Manhattan conducting at La Scala at the same time, when Oscar Opera House, Oscar set sail for Europe to find those came hiring. Toscanni said no – Campanini said yes. singers, beginning first in Paris with a full out assault on Toscanni would later be hired by the Met for the Nellie Melba, the reigning queen of all of opera at the express purpose of defeating the Manhattan and its time. It was a quick and decisive “no” almost principal conductor Campanini – small worlds filled immediately. The diva who had been at the Metropolitan with irony. during 1904 – a contract which ended in cancellation due to a major illness – had absolutely no intention of For once, Oscar recognized that he had won a huge returning to America (or the Met for that matter). prize, and gave Campanini practically unlimited However, Melba had never met Oscar nor felt his authority over every detail of performance – an almost determination. On the one hand, she was incredibly rich, unheard of concession for the impresario up to this the toast of the opera world and able to go anywhere and time. Yes, Oscar actually allowed Campanini to be the sing anything she wanted. On the other, it was Oscar who boss in the musical details of each production. was willing to go to any lengths to land Melba’s voice for However, here was a conductor with a huge capacity his company. for work, capable of rehearsing every day and conducting every night. Campanini also had a brilliant According to Sheean, the following story, which may or creative mind when it came to the production of opera.
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