Washington National Opera (1919–1936)
Encyclopedia
For the present company of the same name, see Washington National Opera
.
The Washington National Opera Association, founded in 1919 as "Washington Community Opera", was a low-budget opera company, comprising professional principals supported by amateurs, active in Washington, DC until 1936; it was in no way related to the present company of the same name. By 1921 it had changed its name to the "Washington National Opera Association".
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. Meek recruited soprano Enrica Clay Dillon
to serve as the company's first Artistic Director, a role she held from 1919-1927.
The company offered a wide range of works during its first year, beginning with a January 13, 1919 performance of Gilbert and Sullivan
's The Pirates of Penzance
and continuing, at intervals throughout the next several months, with Michael William Balfe
's The Bohemian Girl
; George Bizet's Carmen
; Ruggero Leoncavallo
's Pagliacci
; and Charles Gounod
's Faust
, which marked the conductorial debut with the company of Arnold Volpe
. 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
.
In the course of its more than 90 performances, the company was responsible for several accomplishments all out of proportion with its modest status. In 1925, it trumped the Chicago Opera in court to offer Feodor Chaliapin
's first Washington operatic performance, and it also featured the operatic debut of John Charles Thomas
. This took place in the new National Opera House located at 19th and E Street
s.
A year later, it would present the first performances of Tchaikovsky
's Queen of Spades
in Russian by an established US opera company, which were also the first by such a company in any language since the work's American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera
in German some 16 years before. In the Washington production, Dmitri Smirnov
gave what were probably his sole American performances after his departure from the Metropolitan in 1912.
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. At the time, Georgescu was more celebrated for having recently taken over the remainder of the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York
's season from an ailing Arturo Toscanini
.
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
. The Washington company in the same year presented the American premiere of Ralph Vaughan Williams
's Hugh the Drover
under Eugene Goossens
with Tudor Davies
, creator of the role of Hugh. The company's penultimate performance, a 1936 production of Léo Delibes
's Lakmé
, marked the US debut of Bidu Sayão
, although after a fractious dispute with the orchestra players the performance was accompanied by a portable organ.
With the coming of the Depression and the limitations of the National Opera House, the company used it fairly infrequently and dissolved during the period. Limited opera was performed in Washington until the 1950s, except open-air summer performances beside the Potomac River
or in Creek Park's Carter Barron Amphitheatre. Performances in the latter venue lasted for twenty seasons, and included, on 8 July 1965, one by the young tenor Placido Domingo
, partnered by mezzo-soprano Rosalind Elias
, in Carmen.
Washington National Opera
The Washington National Opera is an opera company in Washington, D.C., USA. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Performances are now given in the Opera House of the John F...
.
The Washington National Opera Association, founded in 1919 as "Washington Community Opera", was a low-budget opera company, comprising professional principals supported by amateurs, active in Washington, DC until 1936; it was in no way related to the present company of the same name. By 1921 it had changed its name to the "Washington National Opera Association".
History
Its founder and moving force was a minor baritoneBaritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
who was born in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
as Thomas Harold Meek but who adopted the name Edouard Albion upon settling in Washington and establishing a voice studio. Meek recruited soprano Enrica Clay Dillon
Enrica Clay Dillon
Enrica Clay Dillon was an American opera singer, opera director, and voice teacher.-Life and career:Born in Denver, Colorado, Dillon was the daughter of Judge Henry Clay Dillon and Florence H. Dillon...
to serve as the company's first Artistic Director, a role she held from 1919-1927.
The company offered a wide range of works during its first year, beginning with a January 13, 1919 performance of Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
's The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
and continuing, at intervals throughout the next several months, with Michael William Balfe
Michael William Balfe
Michael William Balfe was an Irish composer, best-remembered for his opera The Bohemian Girl.After a short career as a violinist, Balfe pursued an operatic singing career, while he began to compose. In a career spanning more than 40 years, he composed 38 operas, almost 250 songs and other works...
's The Bohemian Girl
The Bohemian Girl
The Bohemian Girl is an opera composed by Michael William Balfe with a libretto by Alfred Bunn. The plot is loosely based on a Cervantes tale, La Gitanilla.The opera was first produced in London at the Drury Lane Theatre on November 27, 1843...
; George Bizet's Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
; Ruggero Leoncavallo
Ruggero Leoncavallo
Ruggero Leoncavallo was an Italian opera composer. His two-act work Pagliacci remains one of the most popular works in the repertory, appearing as number 20 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.-Biography:...
's Pagliacci
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
; and Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
's Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
, which marked the conductorial debut with the company of Arnold Volpe
Arnold Volpe
Arnold Volpe was a Lithuanian-born American composer and conductor who came to the United States in 1898. He composed mainly chamber music, including a string quartet, as well as a mazurka for violin and orchestra...
. The first production to feature significant professional singers was a Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
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
Mabel Garrison
Mabel Garrison , was an American soprano from Baltimore, Maryland who sang at the Metropolitan Opera from 1914-1921.-References:...
, Jeanne Gordon
Ruby (Jeanne) Gordon
Ruby "Jeanne" Gordon was a Canadian opera singer active during the early 1900s.Gordon was born in Wallaceburg, Ontario, Canada in 1884 and died in Macon, Missouri on 22 February 1952. Ruby got her big break in July 1919. She was called to New York and offered a three year Metropolitan Opera...
, Louise Homer
Louise Homer
Louise Homer was an American operatic contralto who had an active international career in concert halls and opera houses from 1895 until her retirement in 1932. After a brief stint as a vaudeville entertainer in New England, she made her professional opera debut in France in 1898...
, Edith Mason
Edith Mason
Edith Mason was an American soprano.She studied in Boston, Philadelphia, and Paris. She made her debut on January 27, 1912, as Nedda in Pagliacci with the Boston Opera Company. During the next three years, she sang in Europe at Nice, Marseilles, and Paris...
, Pasquale Amato
Pasquale Amato
Pasquale Amato was an outstanding Italian operatic baritone. Amato enjoyed an international reputation but attained the peak of his fame in New York City, where he sang with the Metropolitan Opera from 1908 until 1921....
, George Baklanov, Edward Johnson, Giuseppi Danise, and Titta Ruffo
Titta Ruffo
Titta Ruffo , born as Ruffo Titta Cafiero, was an Italian opera star who had a major international singing career. Known as the "Voce del leone" , he was greatly admired, even by rival baritones, such as Giuseppe De Luca, who said of Ruffo: "His was not a voice, it was a miracle" Titta Ruffo (9...
.
In the course of its more than 90 performances, the company was responsible for several accomplishments all out of proportion with its modest status. In 1925, it trumped the Chicago Opera in court to offer Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was a Russian opera singer. The possessor of a large and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form.During the first phase...
's first Washington operatic performance, and it also featured the operatic debut of John Charles Thomas
John Charles Thomas
John Charles Thomas was a popular American opera, operetta and concert baritone.-Birth, schooling and stage debut:...
. This took place in the new National Opera House located at 19th and E Street
E Street
E Street is an Australian television soap opera created by Forrest Redlich and produced by the Ten Network from 1989 to 1993.Whereas Neighbours is set in a middle-class suburb, Home and Away in a seaside town, and Richmond Hill a semi-rural ordinary community, E Street was set in a tough inner-city...
s.
A year later, it would present the first performances of Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's Queen of Spades
The Queen of Spades (opera)
The Queen of Spades, Op. 68 is an opera in 3 acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on a short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin. The premiere took place in 1890 in St...
in Russian by an established US opera company, which were also the first by such a company in any language since the work's American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in German some 16 years before. In the Washington production, Dmitri Smirnov
Dmitri Alexeievich Smirnov
Dmitri Alexeyevich Smirnov was a leading Russian operatic tenor with a lyric voice and a bravura singing technique.-Biography:...
gave what were probably his sole American performances after his departure from the Metropolitan in 1912.
Later that year, Romanian conductor George Georgescu
George Georgescu
George Georgescu was a Romanian conductor. The moving force behind the Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra for decades beginning shortly after World War I, a protégé of Artur Nikisch and a close associate of George Enescu, he received honors from the French and communist Romanian governments and...
stepped in for Jacques Samossoud
Jacques Alexandria Samossoud
Jacques Alexandria Samossoud was a Russian composer and conductor.-Biography:He was born on September 8, 1894. In 1924 he married the Greek soprano Thalia Sabanieva and they divorced in 1926. He conducted the orchestra of the Washington National Opera from 1919 to 1936...
, who had left the company over a contract dispute, to make his sole appearance in a US opera pit. At the time, Georgescu was more celebrated for having recently taken over the remainder of the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
's season from an ailing Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
.
Also, in a 1928 Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
, Johanna Gadski
Johanna Gadski
Johanna Gadski was a German soprano blessed with a secure, powerful, ringing voice, fine musicianship and an excellent technique. These attributes enabled her to enjoy a top-flight career in New York City and London, performing heavy dramatic roles in the German and Italian repertoires.-Life &...
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
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. The Washington company in the same year presented the American premiere of Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
's Hugh the Drover
Hugh the Drover
Hugh the Drover is an opera in two acts by Ralph Vaughan Williams to an original English libretto by Harold Child. According to Michael Kennedy, the composer took first inspiration for the opera from this question to Bruce Richmond, editor of The Times Literary Supplement, around 1909–1910:"I...
under Eugene Goossens
Eugène Goossens
Eugène Goossens was the name of three notable musicians . Listed chronologically:*Eugène Goossens, père , conductor *Eugène Goossens, fils , violinist and conductor...
with Tudor Davies
Tudor Davies
-Biography:Tudor Davies was born in Cymmer, near Porth, South Wales, on 12 November 1892. He studied in Cardiff and at the Royal College of Music in London. He served as an engineer in the Royal Navy during World War I...
, creator of the role of Hugh. The company's penultimate performance, a 1936 production of Léo Delibes
Léo Delibes
Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...
's Lakmé
Lakmé
Lakmé is an opera in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet and Philippe Gille. Delibes wrote the score during 1881–82 with its first performance on 14 April 1883 at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Set in British India in the mid 19th century, Lakmé is based on the 1880 novel...
, marked the US debut of Bidu Sayão
Bidu Sayão
Bidú Sayão was a Brazilian opera soprano. One of Brazil's most famous musicians, Sayão was a leading artist of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1937 to 1952.-Life and career:...
, although after a fractious dispute with the orchestra players the performance was accompanied by a portable organ.
With the coming of the Depression and the limitations of the National Opera House, the company used it fairly infrequently and dissolved during the period. Limited opera was performed in Washington until the 1950s, except open-air summer performances beside the Potomac River
Potomac River
The Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, located along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The river is approximately long, with a drainage area of about 14,700 square miles...
or in Creek Park's Carter Barron Amphitheatre. Performances in the latter venue lasted for twenty seasons, and included, on 8 July 1965, one by the young tenor Placido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
, partnered by mezzo-soprano Rosalind Elias
Rosalind Elias
Rosalind Elias is an American mezzo-soprano, a rich-voiced singer of fine musicianship who enjoyed a long and distinguished career at the Metropolitan Opera.-Life and career:...
, in Carmen.