A very much better showing was made by the German company, which gave a season during the same time at the Thalia Theatre under the management of Gustav Amberg and the conductorship of John Lund, a chorus master and assistant conductor under Dr. Damrosch at the Metropolitan. The repertory included Der Freischütz, Adam's Le Postilion de Lonjumeau, Nicolai's Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Victor Nessler's Trompeter von Säkkingen, and Maillart's Les Dragons de Villars Germanized as Das Glöckchen des Eremiten. A light program, of course, but very refreshing. During the same season an American opera company made a loud attempt to do something, but it blew up with a bad odor of scandal before it went very far. Its artistic director was Theodore Thomas, and during its short existence it gave Goetz's 'Taming of the Shrew,' Gluck's Orpheus, Wagner's Lohengrin, Mozart's 'Magic Flute,' Nicolai's 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' Delibes' 'Lakmé',' Wagner's 'Flying Dutchman,' and Massé's 'Marriage of Jeanette'; Delibes' ballet 'Sylvia' was also performed. Considering this fine start, it is a very great pity the American Opera Company could not keep its head straight.
After the death of Dr. Damrosch the directors of the Metropolitan sent Edmund C. Stanton and Walter Damrosch to Europe to organize a company for a second season of German opera. The result was perhaps the finest operatic organization New York had yet seen. It included Lilli Lehmann, the greatest of all Wagnerian sopranos; Marianne Brandt, Emil Fischer, the inimitable 'Hans Sachs,' Auguste Seidl-Krauss, and Max Alvary, who set the matinee-idol fashion in operatic tenors. Anton Seidl was conductor and Walter Damrosch assistant conductor. The operas produced were Wagner's Lohengrin, Die Walküre, Tannhäuser, Die Meistersinger, and Rienzi, Meyerbeer's Der Prophet, Bizet's Carmen, Gounod's Faust, and Goldmark's Die Königin von Saba.
In the fall of 1885 there was a short season at the Academy of Music by the Angelo Grand Italian Opera Company. Angelo was a graduate of the luggage department of Mapleson's organization. His season lasted two weeks, during which he presented Verdi's Luisa Miller, I Lombardi, Un Ballo in Maschera, and I due Foscari, as well as Petrella's Ione. The American Opera Company, in the meantime, had been reorganized as the National Opera Company, which, still under the directorship of Theodore Thomas, gave performances in English at the Academy, the Metropolitan, and in Brooklyn. Among the interesting features of their program were Rubinstein's Nero, Goetz's Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung, Delibes' Lakmé, and a number of ballets, including Delibes' Coppelia. In the spring of 1887 Madame Patti appeared at the Metropolitan in a 'farewell' series of six operas under the management of Henry E. Abbey. She continued to make 'farewell' appearances for over twenty years.
The most notable features of the Metropolitan season of 1886-87 were the productions of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Beethoven's Fidelio, Goldmark's Merlin, and Brüll's Das goldene Kreuz. Notable, also, was the appearance of Albert Niemann, histrionically the greatest of all Tristans.[49] The season of 1887-88 saw the production of Wagner's Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, besides Nessler's Der Trompeter von Säkkingen, Weber's Euryanthe, and Spontini's Ferdinand Cortez. There were two consecutive representations of the entire Ring des Nibelungen during the season of 1888-89, the only novelty being Das Rheingold. Der fliegende Holländer, Un Ballo in Maschera, Norma, and Cornelius's Der Barbier von Bagdad were added to the list in his season of 1889-90.
Outside the Metropolitan there was a season of German opera at the Thalia Theatre in 1887, the prima donna being Frau Herbert-Förster, the wife of Victor Herbert. The list of operas offered was commonplace. In 1888 the National Opera Company, without Theodore Thomas but with a distinguished tenor in Barton McGuckin, gave a short and unsuccessful season at the Academy of Music. A notable event of the same year was the first performance in America of Verdi's Otello by a company brought from Italy by Italo Campanini. The enterprise failed, partly owing to the incompetence of the tenor, Marconi, who was cast for the title rôle, and partly owing to the fact that New Yorkers, for some peculiar reason, seem constitutionally incapable of appreciating Verdi in his greatest and least conventional works. Eva Tetrazzini, sister of the more famous Luisa, was the Desdemona of the occasion.
The only performance of Italian opera in New York during the season of 1888-89 was a benefit for Italo Campanini at which he appeared with Clémentine de Vère in Lucia di Lammermoor. During the season of 1889-90 some performances of opera in English were given by the Emma Juch Opera Company at Oscar Hammerstein's Harlem Opera House, which was also the scene of a short postlude to the Metropolitan season by a company conducted by Walter Damrosch and including Lilli Lehmann. The Metropolitan in the meantime was occupied by a very strong Italian company under the management of Henry E. Abbey and Maurice Grau. The company included Patti, Albani, Nordica, and Tamagno,[50] with Arditi and Romualdo Sapio as conductors. Tamagno's presence meant, of course, the production of Otello, and this was the only interesting feature of the repertory. Patti was still singing a 'farewell' in the old hurdy-gurdy list.
The season of 1890-91 proved to be the end of German opera at the Metropolitan for some years. Der fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, the Ring operas (except Das Rheingold), Tristan und Isolde, and Die Meistersinger, Beethoven's Fidelio, Cornelius's Der Barbier von Bagdad, Bizet's Carmen, and Meyerbeer's Le Prophète, Les Huguenots, and L'Africaine were chosen from the regular repertory, while the novelties were Alberto Franchetti's Asraël, Anton Smareglia's Der Vasall von Szigeth, and Diana von Solange by His Royal Highness Ernest II, duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The two first-named novelties were of slight account, while the last-named was so trivial as to lend color to the innuendos that the justly famed liberality of His Royal Highness in the matter of decorations was being exercised for the benefit of some persons not unknown at the Metropolitan.
V
For the season of 1891-92 the Metropolitan was leased to Messrs. Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau. The lessees brought together a brilliant company, including Lilli Lehmann, Emma Eames, Marie Van Zandt, Giula and Sophia Ravogli, Lillian Nordica, Emma Albani, Jean and Édouard de Reszke, and Jean Lassalle. Vianesi was conductor. Meyerbeer, Gounod, Bizet, Verdi, and the older Italians supplied the list of operas for the season, while Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger, Der fliegende Holländer, and Fidelio were given (in Italian) as a sop to the 'German element.' The only novelties were Gluck's Orfeo and Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, the latter having been given previously by two companies in English. A supplementary season in 1892 featured Patti in Lucia and Il Barbiere. In the same year the Metropolitan was partially destroyed by fire.
The Metropolitan Opera House Company was reorganized in 1893 as the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Company and made a new lease with Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau, which, through various vicissitudes, lasted until Heinrich Conried took over the reins in 1902. Abbey died in 1896 and Grau remained at the head of affairs until Conried's advent. The season of 1893-4 presented nothing new except Mascagni's L'Amico Fritz, which did not make a sensation. There was, however, a sensation in the fascinating shape of Emma Calvé, whose Carmen is an imperishably piquant memory with New York opera-goers. With Nellie Melba and Pol Plançon she was the chief newcomer of the season. A supplemental season presented Massenet's Werther. Otherwise there is only to note the Carmen craze provoked by Calvé and a Faust craze induced by the coincidence of Emma Eames, Jean de Reszke, and Plançon. The latter was so pronounced as to lend point to Mr. W. J. Henderson's witty characterization of the Metropolitan as the Faustspielhaus.