Gaetano Merola
Encyclopedia
Gaetano Merola was an Italian conductor
and founder of the San Francisco Opera
.
, the son of a Neapolitan court violinist and studied piano and conducting at the Naples conservatory
. He emigrated to the United States in 1899 and served as an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera
, Henry Wilson Savage
's opera company in Boston and Fortune Gallo
's travelling San Carlo Opera Company
. Oscar Hammerstein I
hired Merola as choral conductor of his Manhattan Opera Company
where Merola remained until the company folded in 1910. He then served as conductor in Hammerstein's London Opera House before returning to New York as an operetta conductor. Merola conducted the premieres of several shows, including Victor Herbert
's Naughty Marietta
, Rudolf Friml
's The Firefly
and Sigmund Romberg
's Maytime.
, a recent arrival to America, at the city's Tivoli Opera House in 1904 and recommended her to Hammerstein
. San Francisco had had a long history of opera houses dating back to the Gold Rush
. Recognizing the city's potential as a major opera center, Merola decided to stay in the Bay Area and launched his first company in 1923 with a summer season of Carmen
, I Pagliacci and Faust
at the Stanford University
football stadium where over 30,000 attended. Though that first season resulted in a deficit, he pressed on the next year, adapting the Civic Auditorium to his purposes. He recruited some 2,000 individuals and local businesses to become Founders of his opera company. By 1927, he presented the local premieres of Tristan und Isolde
and the then-new Turandot
, and in the following years, he introduced Falstaff
, La Fanciulla del West
and Die Meistersinger.
. Two lots across from City Hall were appropriated for the construction, and a bond issue was approved by the voters in 1927. By October 1931, when the twin cornerstones were laid, the stock market crash and ensuing Depression had significantly reduced the construction costs, and the two buildings were completed within the year for US$5.5 million.
The War Memorial Opera House opened on October 15, 1932 with an inaugural production of Tosca
starring Claudia Muzio
, followed a few days later by a charming 27-year-old Lily Pons
in Lucia di Lammermoor
. With a new house, Merola's company grew rapidly in its first decade, producing its first Richard Wagner
Ring Cycle in 1935 starring Kirsten Flagstad
and introducing conductors Fritz Reiner
in 1936-39 and Erich Leinsdorf
in 1938-41.
Part of Merola's southern strategy was to augment his company's home season with run-out performances at the Shrine Auditorium
in Los Angeles
. He had been a partner in the formation of Los Angeles Grand Opera, which had a successful run from 1924 to 1931. With the opening of the War Memorial in October 1932, Merola entered into a business agreement with the Los Angeles arts impresario L.E. Behymer to present stars of the San Francisco Opera
in an abbreviated season of locally produced operas. So it was that L.A. audiences heard Muzio and Bonelli in La traviata
and Il trovatore
and Pons in Lucia
and Rigoletto
just days before their War Memorial debuts. Other notable productions included The Bartered Bride
with Elisabeth Rethberg
and an immense Le Coq d'Or in 1934. In 1937, Merola shed all pretense of a Los Angeles company and formally established a long-running series of annual visits by the San Francisco Opera Association
to the Shrine Auditorium
. That first season included Lauritz Melchior
and Kirsten Flagstad
in Tristan und Isolde
conducted by Fritz Reiner
, Melchior in Lohengrin
, Pons and Ezio Pinza
in Lakmé
, Gina Cigna and Giovanni Martinelli in Aida
and Maria Jeritza
in Tosca
. The result was an unbroken string of yearly Los Angeles performances through 1965.
to San Francisco to serve as conductor, choral director and chief deputy. Adler had been Toscanini's assistant at Salzburg in 1936 and had arrived in the United States in 1938. Merola also continued to attract important new singers - often before they'd performed in other major American opera houses. Notable singers he introduced after the Second World War included Tito Gobbi
, Ferruccio Tagliavini
, Elena Nikolaidi
, Renata Tebaldi
and Mario del Monaco
.
As his health and energy declined over the next decade, Merola turned over more and more of his duties to Adler, though he remained at the helm of the company until his death in 1953 - an impressive stewardship of 30 years.
He died while conducting a performance of Puccini's Madama Butterfly at Sigmund Stern Grove
, an outdoor amphitheatre in western San Francisco where free summer concerts have been given since 1938.
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
and founder of the San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
.
Biography
Merola was born in NaplesNaples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, the son of a Neapolitan court violinist and studied piano and conducting at the Naples conservatory
Music Conservatories of Naples
The Music Conservatory of Naples is a music institution in Naples, southern Italy. It is currently located in the complex of San Pietro a Majella.-San Pietro a Majella:...
. He emigrated to the United States in 1899 and served as an assistant conductor 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...
, Henry Wilson Savage
Henry Wilson Savage
Henry Wilson Savage was an American theatrical manager. He was born in New York City and graduated from Harvard in 1880. He became president of the Henry W. Savage Company, Inc., and of the Castle Square Opera Company of Boston, and director of the National Association of Theatrical Producing...
's opera company in Boston and Fortune Gallo
Fortune Gallo
Fortune Thomas Gallo was an Italian-born opera impresario. Gallo was owner and General Manager of the traveling San Carlo Opera Company from 1913 until its disbandment in the late 1950s.-Biography:...
's travelling San Carlo Opera Company
San Carlo Opera Company
The San Carlo Opera Company was the name of two different opera companies active in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century.-History:...
. Oscar Hammerstein I
Oscar Hammerstein I
Oscar Hammerstein I was a businessman, theater impresario and composer in New York City. His passion for opera led him to open several opera houses, and he rekindled opera's popularity in America...
hired Merola as choral conductor of his Manhattan Opera Company
Manhattan Opera Company
The Manhattan Opera Company was an opera company based in New York City. Active from 1906 until 1910, it was founded by Oscar Hammerstein I.The company began operations in 1906 at the Manhattan Opera House on 34th Street in New York City...
where Merola remained until the company folded in 1910. He then served as conductor in Hammerstein's London Opera House before returning to New York as an operetta conductor. Merola conducted the premieres of several shows, including 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 Naughty Marietta
Naughty Marietta (operetta)
Naughty Marietta is an operetta in two acts, with libretto by Rida Johnson Young and music by Victor Herbert. Set in New Orleans in 1780, it tells how Captain Richard Warrington is commissioned to unmask and capture a notorious French pirate calling himself "Bras Priqué" – and how he is helped and...
, Rudolf Friml
Rudolf Friml
Rudolf Friml was a composer of operettas, musicals, songs and piano pieces, as well as a pianist. After musical training and a brief performing career in his native Prague, Friml moved to the United States, where he became a composer...
's The Firefly
The Firefly (operetta)
The Firefly is the first operetta written by composer Rudolf Friml, with a libretto by Otto Harbach. The story concerns a young girl, who is a street singer. She disguises herself and serves as a cabin boy on a ship to Bermuda, where she falls in love...
and Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg was a Hungarian-born American composer, best known for his operettas.-Biography:Romberg was born as Siegmund Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Gross-Kanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian kaiserlich und königlich monarchy period...
's Maytime.
San Francisco years
It was while touring with the San Carlo Opera that Merola began making annual visits to San Francisco. He first heard Luisa TetrazziniLuisa 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...
, a recent arrival to America, at the city's Tivoli Opera House in 1904 and recommended her to Hammerstein
Oscar Hammerstein I
Oscar Hammerstein I was a businessman, theater impresario and composer in New York City. His passion for opera led him to open several opera houses, and he rekindled opera's popularity in America...
. San Francisco had had a long history of opera houses dating back to the Gold Rush
Gold rush
A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area that has had a dramatic discovery of gold. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.In the 19th and early...
. Recognizing the city's potential as a major opera center, Merola decided to stay in the Bay Area and launched his first company in 1923 with a summer season of 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...
, I Pagliacci and 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...
at the Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
football stadium where over 30,000 attended. Though that first season resulted in a deficit, he pressed on the next year, adapting the Civic Auditorium to his purposes. He recruited some 2,000 individuals and local businesses to become Founders of his opera company. By 1927, he presented the local premieres of Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
and the then-new Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
, and in the following years, he introduced Falstaff
Falstaff (opera)
Falstaff is an operatic commedia lirica in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV. It was Verdi's last opera, written in the composer's ninth decade, and only the second of his 26 operas to be a comedy...
, La Fanciulla del West
La fanciulla del West
La fanciulla del West is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini, based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco. Its highly-publicised premiere occurred in New York City in 1910...
and Die Meistersinger.
War Memorial Opera House
For years, the local citizenry had spoken of building a new opera house. The aftermath of World War I had also kindled a desire to honor the city's war heroes with a veteran's building or art museum. Eventually, those ideas coalesced into a joint project that was to consist of two Palladian-style edifices. One building would house an art museum with veterans rooms while the other would be home to Merola's San Francisco OperaSan Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
. Two lots across from City Hall were appropriated for the construction, and a bond issue was approved by the voters in 1927. By October 1931, when the twin cornerstones were laid, the stock market crash and ensuing Depression had significantly reduced the construction costs, and the two buildings were completed within the year for US$5.5 million.
The War Memorial Opera House opened on October 15, 1932 with an inaugural production of Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
starring Claudia Muzio
Claudia Muzio
Claudia Muzio was an Italian operatic soprano, whose international career was among the most successful of the early 20th century.-Early years:...
, followed a few days later by a charming 27-year-old Lily Pons
Lily Pons
Lily Pons was a French-American operatic soprano and actress who had an active career from the late 1920s through the early 1970s. As an opera singer she specialized in the coloratura soprano repertoire and was particularly associated with the title roles in Léo Delibes' Lakmé and Gaetano...
in Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
. With a new house, Merola's company grew rapidly in its first decade, producing its first Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
Ring Cycle in 1935 starring Kirsten Flagstad
Kirsten Flagstad
Kirsten Målfrid Flagstad was a Norwegian opera singer and a highly regarded Wagnerian soprano...
and introducing conductors Fritz Reiner
Fritz Reiner
Frederick Martin “Fritz” Reiner was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century.-Biography:...
in 1936-39 and Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf was a naturalized American Austrian conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality...
in 1938-41.
Part of Merola's southern strategy was to augment his company's home season with run-out performances at the Shrine Auditorium
Shrine Auditorium
The Shrine Auditorium is a landmark large-event venue, in Los Angeles, California, USA. It is also the headquarters of the Al Malaikah Temple, a division of the Shriners.-History:...
in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. He had been a partner in the formation of Los Angeles Grand Opera, which had a successful run from 1924 to 1931. With the opening of the War Memorial in October 1932, Merola entered into a business agreement with the Los Angeles arts impresario L.E. Behymer to present stars of the San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
in an abbreviated season of locally produced operas. So it was that L.A. audiences heard Muzio and Bonelli in La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
and Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
and Pons in Lucia
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
and Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
just days before their War Memorial debuts. Other notable productions included The Bartered Bride
The Bartered Bride
The Bartered Bride is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. The opera is considered to have made a major contribution towards the development of Czech music. It was composed during the period 1863–66, and first performed at the...
with Elisabeth Rethberg
Elisabeth Rethberg
The German soprano Elisabeth Rethberg was an opera singer of international repute active from the period of the First World War through to the early 1940s. Some hailed her as the greatest soprano of her day...
and an immense Le Coq d'Or in 1934. In 1937, Merola shed all pretense of a Los Angeles company and formally established a long-running series of annual visits by the San Francisco Opera Association
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
to the Shrine Auditorium
Shrine Auditorium
The Shrine Auditorium is a landmark large-event venue, in Los Angeles, California, USA. It is also the headquarters of the Al Malaikah Temple, a division of the Shriners.-History:...
. That first season included Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior was a Danish and later American opera singer. He was the pre-eminent Wagnerian tenor of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and has since come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type.-Biography:...
and Kirsten Flagstad
Kirsten Flagstad
Kirsten Målfrid Flagstad was a Norwegian opera singer and a highly regarded Wagnerian soprano...
in Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
conducted by Fritz Reiner
Fritz Reiner
Frederick Martin “Fritz” Reiner was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century.-Biography:...
, Melchior in Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
, Pons and Ezio Pinza
Ezio Pinza
Ezio Pinza was an Italian basso opera singer with a rich, smooth and sonorous voice. He spent 22 seasons at New York's Metropolitan Opera, appearing in more than 750 performances of 50 operas...
in 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...
, Gina Cigna and Giovanni Martinelli in Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
and Maria Jeritza
Maria Jeritza
Maria Jeritza , born Marie Jedličková, was a celebrated Moravian soprano singer, long associated with the Vienna State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera...
in Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
. The result was an unbroken string of yearly Los Angeles performances through 1965.
Later years
In 1943, Merola brought Kurt Herbert AdlerKurt Herbert Adler
Kurt Herbert Adler was an Austrian-born American conductor and opera house director.Adler was born in Vienna, Austria to a Jewish family. His work in the field of music led him to become the assistant to Arturo Toscanini at the Salzburg Festival in 1936 and he also worked in Italy...
to San Francisco to serve as conductor, choral director and chief deputy. Adler had been Toscanini's assistant at Salzburg in 1936 and had arrived in the United States in 1938. Merola also continued to attract important new singers - often before they'd performed in other major American opera houses. Notable singers he introduced after the Second World War included Tito Gobbi
Tito Gobbi
Tito Gobbi was an Italian operatic baritone with an international reputation.-Biography:Tito Gobbi was born in Bassano del Grappa and studied law at the University of Padua before he trained as a singer. Giulio Crimi, a well-known Italian tenor of a previous generation, was Gobbi's teacher in Rome...
, Ferruccio Tagliavini
Ferruccio Tagliavini
Ferruccio Tagliavini was an Italian operatic tenor mainly active in the 1940s and 1950s...
, Elena Nikolaidi
Elena Nikolaidi
Elena Nikolaidi was a noted Greek-American opera singer and teacher. Nikolaidi sang leading mezzo-soprano roles with major opera companies worldwide and made numerous recordings....
, Renata Tebaldi
Renata Tebaldi
Renata Tebaldi was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period...
and Mario del Monaco
Mario del Monaco
Mario Del Monaco was an Italian tenor who is regarded by his admirers as being one of the greatest dramatic tenors of the 20th century....
.
As his health and energy declined over the next decade, Merola turned over more and more of his duties to Adler, though he remained at the helm of the company until his death in 1953 - an impressive stewardship of 30 years.
He died while conducting a performance of Puccini's Madama Butterfly at Sigmund Stern Grove
Sigmund Stern Recreation Grove
Sigmund Stern Recreation Grove, locally called Stern Grove, is a recreational site in the Sunset District, San Francisco, California. It is administered by the city's Recreation and Parks Department, and is the concert setting for the 74-year-old Stern Grove Festival.The site, along Sloat...
, an outdoor amphitheatre in western San Francisco where free summer concerts have been given since 1938.