McCaull Comic Opera Company
Encyclopedia
McCaull Comic Opera Company, sometimes called the McCaull Opera Comique Company, was founded by Colonel John A. McCaull in 1880. The company produced operetta
, comic opera
and musical theatre
in New York City and on tour in the eastern and midwestern U.S. and Canada until McCaull's death in 1894. It nurtured such stars, in their early careers, as Lillian Russell
and De Wolfe Hopper.
. He was representing John T. Ford
, lessee of the Fifth Avenue Theatre
in New York, when Gilbert and Sullivan
presented H.M.S. Pinafore
in December of 1879 and premiered The Pirates of Penzance
at the end of that month. McCaull was attracted to theatrical production and became involved as an investor with these productions. He then quit his law practice to produce light opera. For the Christmas season in 1880, he staged Olivette at the Bijou Theatre
in New York. The strong success of this piece encouraged him to continue to present comic opera.
McCaull explained the goals of his opera company to The New York Times
: "The public demands good voices. .... Our aim is to build up this thing until we get something like the Opéra comique
in Paris". McCaull invested $10,000 in Rudolph Aronson's newly rebuilt Casino Theatre in New York in 1882. He opened the theatre the same year with the American premiere of the Strauss
operetta The Queen's Lace Handkerchief
. Also there, the company produced Prince Methusalem (1883), Der Bettelstudent
(1883–84), Falka
(1884), Nell Gwynne
(with a new libretto), Die Fledermaus
(1885), Apajune, the Water Nymph (1885) and The Black Hussar (1885). The success of The Black Hussar led to an extended run. After this, McCaull quarrelled with the Aronsons and was forced out of the theatre, so the company became exclusively a touring company. The company returned to Broadway
, however, for summer seasons at Wallack's Theatre and for brief productions at other theatres, including Rudolph Dellinger's Lorraine and De Koven
's The Begum, both in 1887.
By 1885, McCaull had three companies on tour almost continually. McCaull told The New York Times, "Two of these companies play 40 weeks in the year. The other plays 52 weeks. ... [T]here are 1,300 people who receive their direct support in connection with my companies." The performers included Frederick Leslie
, Eugène Oudin
, Digby Bell
, Lillian Russell
, Frank Daniels
, Francis Wilson
, May Yohé
and De Wolfe Hopper. The company appeared in Denver, Colorado
in 1883, playing Johann Strauss II
's The Queen's Lace Handkerchief
. The review in the Rocky Mountain News praised the cast and stated that "in musical and dramatic ability and magnificent costuming, the McCaull opera company is the best that has ever visited Denver. The scenery is very pretty and appropriate, the chorus well trained and well dressed." In 1890 in Kansas City and Denver, the company produced The Black Hussar and Von Suppe's opera Clover, "which was given to a crowded and appreciative house. It was exceedingly well put on and was fully enjoyed, applause being continued and frequent. The chorus work was excellent and the work of the principals left nothing to be desired."
Biographer Johnson Briscoe remarked: "Col. John A. McCaull was one of the greatest light opera's impresarios that this country has ever known, and the McCaull Opera Company was a truly wonderful organization, the like of which we shall probably never know again."
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
, comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
and musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
in New York City and on tour in the eastern and midwestern U.S. and Canada until McCaull's death in 1894. It nurtured such stars, in their early careers, as Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell was an American actress and singer. She became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th century and early 20th century, known for her beauty and style, as well as for her voice and stage presence.Russell was born in Iowa but raised in Chicago...
and De Wolfe Hopper.
Early years
McCaull (1846–1894) was born in Scotland. He served as a colonel in the Confederate Army and later became a lawyer in BaltimoreBaltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
. He was representing John T. Ford
John T. Ford
John Thomson Ford was an American theater manager in the nineteenth century. He is most notable for operating Ford's Theatre at the time of the Abraham Lincoln assassination.-Early life:...
, lessee of the Fifth Avenue Theatre
Fifth Avenue Theatre
Fifth Avenue Theatre was a Broadway theatre in New York City in the United States located at 31 West 28th Street and Broadway. It was demolished in 1939....
in New York, when 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...
presented H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
in December of 1879 and premiered 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...
at the end of that month. McCaull was attracted to theatrical production and became involved as an investor with these productions. He then quit his law practice to produce light opera. For the Christmas season in 1880, he staged Olivette at the Bijou Theatre
Bijou Theatre
Two Broadway theatres have been named the Bijou Theatre.The first was converted into a theatre in 1878 and rebuilt in 1883. It was often called the Bijou Opera House and was located at 1239 Broadway. It was also sometimes called The Brighton Theatre. It became a popular venue for operettas in...
in New York. The strong success of this piece encouraged him to continue to present comic opera.
McCaull explained the goals of his opera company to The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
: "The public demands good voices. .... Our aim is to build up this thing until we get something like the Opéra comique
Opéra comique
Opéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged out of the popular opéra comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent , which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections...
in Paris". McCaull invested $10,000 in Rudolph Aronson's newly rebuilt Casino Theatre in New York in 1882. He opened the theatre the same year with the American premiere of the Strauss
Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II , also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son , was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas...
operetta The Queen's Lace Handkerchief
Das Spitzentuch der Königin
Das Spitzentuch der Königin is an operetta by Johann Strauss II. The libretto by Heinrich Bohrmann-Riegen and Richard Genée was based on Cervantes....
. Also there, the company produced Prince Methusalem (1883), Der Bettelstudent
Der Bettelstudent
Der Bettelstudent is an operetta in three acts by Carl Millöcker with a German libretto by Camillo Walzel and Richard Genée, based on Les noces de Fernande by Victorien Sardou and The Lady of Lyons by Edward Bulwer-Lytton...
(1883–84), Falka
Falka
Le droit d'aînesse is an opéra bouffe, a form of operetta, in three acts by Francis Chassaigne with a French libretto by Eugène Leterrier and Albert Vanloo. It premiered in Paris in 1883...
(1884), Nell Gwynne
Nell Gwynne (operetta)
Nell Gwynne is a three-act comic opera composed by Robert Planquette, with a libretto by H. B. Farnie. The libretto is based on the play Rochester by William Thomas Moncrieff. The piece was a rare instance of an opera by a French composer being produced first in London...
(with a new libretto), Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée.- Literary sources :...
(1885), Apajune, the Water Nymph (1885) and The Black Hussar (1885). The success of The Black Hussar led to an extended run. After this, McCaull quarrelled with the Aronsons and was forced out of the theatre, so the company became exclusively a touring company. The company returned to Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, however, for summer seasons at Wallack's Theatre and for brief productions at other theatres, including Rudolph Dellinger's Lorraine and De Koven
Reginald de Koven
Henry Louis Reginald De Koven was an American music critic and prolific composer, particularly of comic operas.-Biography:...
's The Begum, both in 1887.
By 1885, McCaull had three companies on tour almost continually. McCaull told The New York Times, "Two of these companies play 40 weeks in the year. The other plays 52 weeks. ... [T]here are 1,300 people who receive their direct support in connection with my companies." The performers included Frederick Leslie
Frederick Hobson Leslie
Frederick George Hobson, known as Fred Leslie , was an English actor, singer, comedian and dramatist....
, Eugène Oudin
Eugène Oudin
Eugène Esperance Oudin was an American baritone, composer and translator of the Victorian era.-Early years:...
, Digby Bell
Digby Bell
Digby Bell was a popular vaudeville entertainer and Broadway performer at the beginning of the 20th century.-Performing career:...
, Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell was an American actress and singer. She became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th century and early 20th century, known for her beauty and style, as well as for her voice and stage presence.Russell was born in Iowa but raised in Chicago...
, Frank Daniels
Frank Daniels
Frank Albert Daniels was a comedian, an actor on stage and in early black-and-white films, and a singer....
, Francis Wilson
Francis Wilson (actor)
Francis Wilson was an American actor, born in Philadelphia.-Career:He began his career in a minstrel show, but by 1878 was playing at the Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia, and the next year appeared in M'liss with Annie Pixley...
, May Yohé
May Yohé
Mary Augusta "May" Yohé was an American musical theatre actress. After beginning her career with the McCaull Comic Opera Company in 1886 in New York and Chicago, and after other performing in the United States, she quickly gained success on the London stage beginning in 1893...
and De Wolfe Hopper. The company appeared in Denver, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
in 1883, playing Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II , also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son , was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas...
's The Queen's Lace Handkerchief
Das Spitzentuch der Königin
Das Spitzentuch der Königin is an operetta by Johann Strauss II. The libretto by Heinrich Bohrmann-Riegen and Richard Genée was based on Cervantes....
. The review in the Rocky Mountain News praised the cast and stated that "in musical and dramatic ability and magnificent costuming, the McCaull opera company is the best that has ever visited Denver. The scenery is very pretty and appropriate, the chorus well trained and well dressed." In 1890 in Kansas City and Denver, the company produced The Black Hussar and Von Suppe's opera Clover, "which was given to a crowded and appreciative house. It was exceedingly well put on and was fully enjoyed, applause being continued and frequent. The chorus work was excellent and the work of the principals left nothing to be desired."
Later years
Late in 1888 in Chicago, McCaull fell on ice, receiving a deep cut on his head. This caused a brain injury that lead to paralysis of the muscles of his throat and right side. For about a year afterwards, he continued to direct the company, although his speech was so difficult to understand that he eventually had to give up directing. The De Wolf Hopper Opera Company was then formed with some of McCaull's singers. Francis Wilson also formed his own opera company. By 1890, there were rumors that McCaull's company would disband. By 1891, McCaull had sold his properties and rights to perform works to Harry Askin. But McCaull and his wife sued Askin for not paying the full amount. McCaull continued to control his companies, using hired managers, nearly until his death in 1894.Biographer Johnson Briscoe remarked: "Col. John A. McCaull was one of the greatest light opera's impresarios that this country has ever known, and the McCaull Opera Company was a truly wonderful organization, the like of which we shall probably never know again."
External links
- McCaull Opera Comique Company at the IBDB database
- 1886 New York Times article
- 1888 New York Times article