Eastern Illinois University The Keep Faculty Research & Creative Activity History 1973 Early Opera in Chicago Donald Tingley Eastern Illinois University Follow this and additional works at: http://thekeep.eiu.edu/history_fac Part of the Other History Commons, and the Other Music Commons Recommended Citation Tingley, Donald, "Early Opera in Chicago" (1973). Faculty Research & Creative Activity. 75. http://thekeep.eiu.edu/history_fac/75 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the History at The Keep. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Research & Creative Activity by an authorized administrator of The Keep. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Alpha Psi Omega PLAYBILL 1973 ART WORK Cover by Virginia Anderson Illustrations, pages 1-16, by Yvonne Schneider Alpha Psi Omega Playbill, 1973 Contents 2 6 0 000 of the Century Chicago: show represented the post-impressionists and cubists and e Center of the United States shocked the local populace. Great writers from elsewhere, William Butler Yeats, Amy Lowell, and Matthew Arnold first two decades of the twentieth visited Chicago. Isadora Duncan danced on the Chicago century roduced a cultural atmosphere that was stage; Maurice Browne started off the little theatre unrivale nited States. The Dial, a magazine of m::>vement in Chicago; and the incomparable Theodore literary as published there and Harriet Monroe Thomas developed a great symphony in the Windy City. brought first issue of Poetry in 1912, and Early opera in Chicago had a hectic course. During Margare gan publication of the Little Review a the later years of the nineteenth century, there were little rg, Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood sporadic performances by traveling opera companies, An Vachel Lindsay, and Edgar Lee some from New York, some from New Orleans. One of Ma go during this period as did scores the big events in the promotion of opera was the of 1 of these were the avant garde of dedication of the Auditorium Theatre in 1889. This thei were naturalistic and their forms theatre had been designed by Louis Sullivan and his . Mencken wrote of these Chicago partner Dankmar Adler. The engineering skill of Adler is said to have produced the near-perfect acoustics of the who is indubitably an theatre. The theatre was opened in 1889 by a concert by as something new and Adelina Patti with President Benjamin Harrison and Vice nd ys it with an President Levi Morton in the audience. Harriet Monroe, WHll'll I will show aheady known as a poetess, wrote an ode for the nection with occasion. The company gave twenty-two performances during a four-week opera season. The traveling opera rishing and in 1913 companies did not always do well in Chicago and in some ago. The artists in this instances, the season was a financial failure. In 1900, for 0 AN ANECDOTAL HISTORY bg Donald F. Tingleg example, the impresario from New York, Maurice Grau, Pointing with pride to the great successes of the announced that never again would he bring an opera Chicago Symphony, the Tribune thought the orchestra company to Chicago. He said: was proof enough of the cultural stature of Chicago. I have cut out Chicago; understand, cut out Chicago. Chicago does not want grand opera, repeat, and so I have done the Manhattan Opera Company: only thing left to do. I have cut out the New York's Loss is Chicago's Gain town absolutely! Absolutely! I have spoken. The Chicago Tribune reacted defensively to the While Chicago's opera was floundering, there were announcement that there would be no more opera in also problems in New York, for about the same time, Chicago : Oscar Hammerstein had organized the Manhattan Opera Would it not be more honest to admit Company to compete with the well-established that grand opera itself is in part a fad and a Metropolitan.Hammerstein hoped to run the latter out of fashion instead of being one of the eternal business, but after several years, it became evident that verities upon which one may predicate there was no competition. The Metropolitan absorbed the cultures and artificial things, that its charm smaller company at a cost of $1,200 ,000. is largely that of novelty, that the lasting Not long after, Hammerstein moved to Chicago and element in it is solely in the music, that one agreed to establish an opera company. The Chicago may prefer to hear the music apart from the backers bought his remaining assets, including some so-called dramatic part without being a costumes, scenery, and scores. Many of the singers, barbarian, and that finally all refinement managerial people, and conductors also came to Chicago and culture are not confined to the few from the old Manhattan Opera Company, and the Chicago complacent persons who happen to enjoy Grand Opera Company was born. It opened on November nothing in music but the operas of Richard 3, 1910, with the production of Verdi's "Aida." The Wagner. (Continued on page 4) 3 president of the company was Harold Fowler McCormick On the one hand the Puritans of the city thought it was a · of the reaper family and the vice president was Charles G. sinful spectacle. Chief of Police, Leroy T. Steward said: Dawes. The musical director was Cleofonte Campanini. It was disgusting. Miss Garden wallowed around like a cat in a bed of Music, Money and McCormick: catnip. There v.as no art in her dance that I could see. If the same show were produced Chicago's Dominant Figures on Halsted Street the people would call it cheap, but at the Auditorium they say it's There were a number of figures both musical and art. nonmusical that tended to dominate the Chicago opera Mary Garden felt this was a narrow view. In any case there scene. Just as Harold Fowler McCormick dominated the was no problem selling the tickets for the second financial side of Chicago opera for a dozen years, Mary performance. The house was packed and tickets were Garden, a soprano who had grown up in Chicago, tended selling at a premium. At this point, Arthur Farwell, to dominate it musically for at least twenty years. Mary president of Chicago's Law and Order League, protested; Garden had been born in Scotland but grew up in Chicago describing the performance as vicious and sinful. The third and while still a young girl, studied music in Paris. She performance of "Salome" was cancelled, and this made her American debut with the Manhattan Opera particular opera was not heard again in Chicago until Mary Company in 1907 and from this time on she remained a Garden herself became the musical director of the opera highly controversial figure. Some people thought, as a in the early l 920's. musician, she could do no wrong while others thought During the second season, Mary Garden sang several that she could do nothing right. The third evening of the roles. One of the interesting ones was the title role of first season of the new opera company Mary Garden sang Victor Herbert's "Natoma," an opera set in California, Debussy's "Pelleas & Melisande" before a sold-out house. during the days of the Spanish occupancy. Mary Garden This opera became one of the most portrayed an Indian maiden named Natoma. The Chicago important in her repertoire. Debussy Opera was always quick to support American composers himself had coached the soprano in this as well as the classical ones. During this second season role and is said to have fallen madly in perhaps the most scandalous episode was the production love with her. Some had said that Mary of the opera "The Secret of Suzanne" by Wold-Ferrari in Garden was not the greatest soprano of which the singer in the title role was called upon to smoke all times, but few doubt her ability as a number of cigarettes on stage which called up a great an actress both on and off the stage. deal of criticism from Chicago's Anti-Cigarette League, She created many a tempestuous one of the big reform movements of the time. There were moment in Chicago circles. During the other great figures in Chicago opera besides Mary Garden. first season she was to sing the title role There was Maggie Teyte, a tiny woman with a big voice. in Strauss's "Salome." In this Luisa Tetrazzini, the sister-in-law of the musical director performance, as in all her Cleofonte Campanini, was a woman also with a big voice performances, she insisted on as much but with an enormous body to go with it. realism as possible. The opera was By 1913, Cleofonte Campanini became not only performed in French and what really musical director but was elevated to general director as broke up Chicago was her rendition of well. By this time all the stock of the Chicago Opera the "Dance of the Seven Veils." Mary Company was in the hands of Chicagoans so that there Garden herself describes it in this way: was no longer any influence from the outside. World War I "I have on enormous veils which I took brought problems, and in 1914 there was no opera season. off one by one and threw in Herod's This brought about a reorganization of the company, then face With the very last veil, I enveloped called the Chicago Opera Association with Harold Fowler myself entirely. Under that last veil was McCormick still president and Charles G. Dawes as vice just the thinnest, thinnest muslin. As I president. Maestro Campanini continued as the general ran from the cistern over to Herod, I director.