New Orleans, always known for a vibrant music scene, was the first to usher in the dramatic art form of opera to an appreciative young nation.
One reader’s question: Was New Orleans the first American city to have an opera house?
Philadelphia is commonly credited with the oldest existing opera house in the United States — the Academy of Music opened in 1857 and is still operating today.
However, OperaCréole founder and Artistic Director Givonna Joseph turned to the long-destroyed Théâtre d’Orléans to credit New Orleans with the first opera house in the U.S.
Joseph, whose organization is dedicated to uplifting and reviving Black opera traditions in New Orleans, discussed the popularity of the music in New Orleans.
“Opera in New Orleans was like pop music,” she said. “It was for everybody.”
The earliest documentation of a New Orleans opera performance was in 1796, the opera “Sylvain,” by Andre Gretry. Joseph and other researchers believe opera was almost certainly performed earlier, based on other correspondence and research from the time period. She credits New Orleans with popularizing the art form.
Opera quickly became a growing presence in the local theater scene, and a proper space was needed to house these performances. The Théâtre d’Orléans, located on Orleans Avenue between Royal Street and Bourbon Street, opened to the public in 1815, according to the research of Henry Arnold Kmen, in his book, “Music in New Orleans: The Formative Years, 1791–1841.”
The building, which had taken years to build due to constant funding and construction struggles, was soon destroyed by fire in 1816. Rebuilt and reopened in 1819, the theater became a lodestone for U.S. opera. A flood of theater spaces would follow, including the Camp Street Theatre, the St. Charles Theatre and the New American Theatre.
“We were first in the country on many levels,” Joseph said. “We debuted over 200 operas in America for the first time. Sometimes we had two or three opera houses going at a time, and free people of color had the money to support them.
“We also learned that sometimes enslaved people who could hire themselves out on a Sunday —making money as iron workers and plasterers and all that and would use that money to buy their freedom — also bought a ticket to the opera.”
The city’s French Opera House, one of the grandest opera spaces in the city, was built in 1859 to great acclaim. Created in the style of European opera houses on the corner of Toulouse and Bourbon, the building had an orchestra pit, four tiers of seating and a gallery.
“There will be, we are convinced, no such elegant and commodious theatre in the country,” reads a Daily Picayune report on the near completion of the opera house, dated Oct. 25. 1859.
Many of these theatre spaces were destroyed by fire; the Théâtre d’Orléans fell prey to flame in 1866 and the French Opera House went ablaze in 1919.
“Unfortunately, some of these beautiful opera houses burned down,” Joseph said. “As I tell people, when you have to use real flame to light the stage, it becomes problematic.”