Adolf Neuendorff - New York

New York

In 1867 he became music-director of the New Stadt Theatre in New York. Here he conducted the American first performances of Wagner's Lohengrin, on April 3, 1871, and Die Walküre, on April 2, 1877. In 1872 he brought Theodor Wachtel to the United States, and, with Carl Rosa, gave a season of Italian opera at the Academy of music. In that year he also established the Germania Theatre in New York, of which he was manager for eleven years. During that time he was also organist of a church and conductor of a choral society. In 1875 he gave a season of German opera with Wachtel and Madame Pappenheim, conducted the Beethoven centennial concerts, and in 1876 he went to the first Wagner festival at Bayreuth as correspondent for the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung. In the 1878-79 season he conducted the New York Philharmonic Society in the absence of Theodore Thomas, who was away in Cincinnati. The first American performance of Brahms's 2nd Symphony was given by the Philharmonic orchestra under Neuendorff's direction on October 3, 1878. On December 21, 1878, he conducted the same orchestra during the United States premiere of Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini, Fantasy after Dante. For the 1879-1880 season Thomas returned from Cincinnati to New York, and was elected conductor of the Philharmonic well ahead of Neuendorff and Leopold Damrosch. Neuendorff began to compose comic operas and operettas himself, most of which were written to librettos in German as well as in English. Besides, he translated German operas into English to be performed on Broadway, for example Franz von Suppé's Die Afrikareise.