Two grand opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 companies in Chicago have gone by the name Chicago Grand Opera Company

The first Chicago Grand Opera Company produced four seasons of opera in Chicago’s Auditorium Theater from the Fall of 1910 through November 1915. It was the first resident Chicago opera company. The company also spent several months each year performing in the city of Philadelphia where it performed at the Philadelphia Metropolitan Opera House

Metropolitan Opera House (Philadelphia)

The Metropolitan Opera House is a historic opera house located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at 858 North Broad Street. Built over the course of just a few months in 1908, it was the ninth opera house built by impresario Oscar Hammerstein I. It was initially the home of Hammerstein's Philadelphia...

 under the name the Philadelphia-Chicago Grand Opera Company in order to "satisfy the civic pride" of that city. The company notably presented the world premieres of Victor Herbert

Victor Herbert

Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...

's Natoma (1911) and Attilio Parelli

Attilio Parelli

Attilio Enrico Paparella, known professionally as Attilio Parelli was an Italian conductor and composer....

's I dispettosi amanti (1912). The company also mounted the United States premieres of Jean Nouguès

Jean Nouguès

Jean-Charles Nouguès was a French composer of operas.Born in Bordeaux, Nouguès was from a wealthy family, and in his youth he received little formal musical training. His first opera, Le Roi de Papagey, was written when he was only sixteen; after further study in Paris, he composed a second,...

's Quo vadis (1911), Karl Goldmark

Karl Goldmark

Karl Goldmark, also known originally as Károly Goldmark and later sometimes as Carl Goldmark; May 18, 1830, Keszthely – January 2, 1915, Vienna) was a Hungarian composer.- Life and career :...

's Das Heimchen am Herd (1912), and Alberto Franchetti

Alberto Franchetti

Alberto Franchetti was an Italian opera composer.-Biography:Alberto Franchetti was born in Turin, a Jewish nobleman of independent means. He studied first in Venice, then in Dresden under Felix Draeseke, and finally at the Munich Conservatory under Josef Rheinberger. His first major success...

's Cristoforo Colombo

Cristoforo Colombo (opera)

Cristoforo Colombo is an opera in four acts and an epilogue by Alberto Franchetti to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica...

(1913). Notable performers who sang with the company included Paul Althouse

Paul Althouse

Paul Shearer Althouse was an American opera singer. He began his career as a lyric tenor with a robust Italianate sound, excelling in roles like Cavaradossi, Pinkerton, and Turiddu. He later branched out into the dramatic tenor repertoire, finding particular success in portraying Wagnerian heroes...

, Marguerite Bériza

Marguerite Bériza

Marguerite Bériza was a French opera singer who had an active international career during the first half of the 20th century. She began her career as a mezzo-soprano at the Opéra-Comique in 1900; ultimately transitioning into the leading soprano repertoire at that theatre in 1912...

, Armand Crabbé

Armand Crabbé

Armand Crabbé was a Belgian operatic baritone. In 1904 he made his professional opera debut at La Monnaie as the Nightwatchman in Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. He was a leading performer at the Royal Opera House in London from 1906-1914 and again in 1937...

, Charles Dalmorès

Charles Dalmorès

Charles Dalmorès was a French tenor. He enjoyed an international operatic career, singing to public and critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic during the first two decades of the 20th century.-Biography:...

, 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...

, Jenny Dufau

Jenny Dufau

Jenny Dufau was a French opera singer who found her success in Chicago.Dufau was born on 18 July 1878 in Rothau, Alsace-Lorraine. She began her career with the Chicago Grand Opera Company in 1911 after studying opera in Berlin under Etelka Gerster. In Chicago, Dufau was a lead soprano, nicknamed...

, Hector Dufranne

Hector Dufranne

Hector Dufranne was a Belgian operatic bass-baritone who enjoyed a long career that took him to opera houses throughout Europe and the United States for more than four decades...

, Minnie Egener

Minnie Egener

Minnie Egener was an American operatic mezzo-soprano. She made her professional opera debut in 1904 at the Metropolitan Opera as one of the flower maidens in Richard Wagner's Parsifal. In 1906 she moved to Italy and spent the next several years performing in operas with various theaters throughout...

, Amy Evans

Amy Evans

Amy Evans was a Welsh soprano and actress known for her performances in oratorio, recitals, and opera. She also made some music recordings beginning in 1906. In 1910, she played the leading role of Selene in W. S. Gilbert's last opera, Fallen Fairies and sang at the Royal Opera House the same...

, Mary Garden

Mary Garden

Mary Garden , was a Scottish operatic soprano with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century...

, Jeanne Gerville-Réache

Jeanne Gerville-Réache

Jeanne Gerville-Réache was a French operatic contralto from the Belle Époque. She possessed a remarkably beautiful voice, an excellent singing technique, and wide vocal range which enabled her to perform several roles traditionally associated with mezzo-sopranos in addition to contralto parts...

, Orville Harrold

Orville Harrold

Orville Harrold was an American operatic tenor and musical theatre actor. He began his career in 1906 as a performer in operettas in New York City, and was also seen during his early career in cabaret, musical theatre, and vaudeville performances...

, Gustave Huberdeau

Gustave Huberdeau

Gustave Huberdeau was a French operatic bass-baritone who had a prolific career in Europe and the United States during the first quarter of the twentieth century...

, Frances Ingram

Frances Ingram

Elizabeth Frances Ingram was an American operatic contralto of English birth who had an active career in North America during the 1910s and 1920s.-Life and career:...

, Lydia Lipkowska

Lydia Lipkowska

Lydia Lipkowska was a Russian operatic soprano. Born in Babino, she was trained at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. She was committed to the Mariinsky Theatre from 1906–1908 and again from 1911–1913. She was a member of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1909 -1911...

, Vanni Marcoux

Vanni Marcoux

Jean-Émile Diogène Marcoux was a French operatic bass-baritone, known professionally as Vanni Marcoux . He was particularly associated with the French and Italian repertories...

, Carmen Melis

Carmen Melis

Carmen Melis was an Italian operatic soprano who had a major international career during the first four decades of the 20th century. She was known, above all, as a verismo soprano, and was one of the most interesting singing actresses of the early 20th century...

, Lucien Muratore

Lucien Muratore

Lucien Muratore was a French actor and operatic tenor, particularly associated with the French repertory.- Life and career :...

, Giovanni Polese

Giovanni Polese

Giovanni Polese was an Italian operatic baritone who had an active international singing career from 1894-1928. He achieved the height of his success in the United States in the years 1908-1916 in the cities of Boston, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, and again from 1926-1928 in Chicago...

, Albert Reiss

Albert Reiss

Albert Reiss was a German operatic tenor who had a prolific career in Europe and the United States during the first third of the twentieth century. He spent much of his career performing at the Metropolitan Opera where he sang in more than 1,000 performances, including several premieres, between...

, Myrna Sharlow

Myrna Sharlow

Myrna Sharlow was an American soprano who had an active performance career in operas and concerts during the 1910s through the 1930s. She began her career in 1912 with the Boston Opera Company and became one of Chicago's more active sopranos from 1915–1920, and again in 1923–1924 and 1926–1927...

, Tarquinia Tarquini

Tarquinia Tarquini

Tarquinia Tarquini was an Italian dramatic soprano and the wife of composer Riccardo Zandonai. Born in Colle di Val d'Elsa, Tarquini studied singing at the Milan Conservatory and privately in Florence...

, Luisa Tetrazzini

Luisa Tetrazzini

Luisa Tetrazzini was an Italian coloratura soprano of great international fame.Tetrazzini's voice was remarkable for its phenomenal flexibility, thrust, steadiness and thrilling tone...

, Alice Zeppilli

Alice Zeppilli

Alice Zeppilli was a French operatic soprano of Italian heritage who had an active international singing career from 1901 to 1930. The pinnacle of her career was in the United States where she enjoyed great popularity between 1906 and 1914; particularly in the cities of Chicago, New York, and...

, and Nicola Zerola

Nicola Zerola

Nicola Zerola was an Italian operatic tenor who had an active international career from 1898-1928. He began his career in his native country, but was soon heard in concerts and operas internationally during the first years of the 20th century...

 among others.

The second Chicago Grand Opera Company was an attempt to keep opera going in Chicago after the collapse of the Chicago Civic Opera

Chicago Civic Opera

The Civic Opera Company was a Chicago company that produced seven seasons of grand opera in the Auditorium Theater from 1922 to 1928, and three seasons at its own Civic Opera House from 1929 to 1931 before falling victim to financial difficulties brought on in part by the Great Depression.-...

 in 1932. It produced three seasons of opera at the Civic Opera House from 1933 to 1935 before it too succumbed to financial difficulties. It was succeeded by the Chicago City Opera Company

Chicago City Opera Company

The Chicago City Opera Company was a grand opera company in Chicago, organized from the remaining assets of the bankrupt Chicago Grand Opera Company, that produced four seasons of opera at the Civic Opera House from 1935 to 1939 before it too succumbed to financial difficulties...

.

Sources

• Davis, Ronald L., Opera in Chicago, Appleton, New York City, 1966.
• Marsh, Robert C. and Norman Pellegrini, 150 Years of Opera in Chicago, Northern Illinois University Press, Chicago 2006.