Jeannette Thurber's American Opera Company
The first American Opera Company was founded in 1886 by well known arts patron Jeannette Meyers Thurber who had just founded the National Conservatory of Music of America a few months earlier. Based in New York City, the American Opera Company was under the musical direction of Theodore Thomas with Gustav Hinrichs and Arthur Mees assistant conductors and Charles E. Locke was the business manager. It rented the premises of the Academy of Music in New York City for local performances during 1886. It also toured, playing in April, May and June 1886 in, among other cities, Boston, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and St. Louis. The repertoire included Verdi's Aida, Wagner's Lohengrin, and Gounod's Faust. In August, the company announced an ambitious plan to travel to Paris, a trip that never came about.
A succinct statement of Thurber's vision for the American Opera Company appeared in August, 1886, when she was cited as "... the fact that the true conception of a national opera is opera sung in a nation's language and, as far as practicable, the work of a nation's composers, …in time to develop and patronize American composers."
Financial difficulties led to a reorganization and name change to the "National Opera Company" in December 1887 and, ultimately, bankruptcy in March, 1887.
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