Washington National Opera (1919–1936)

Washington National Opera Association

Company type	Opera company
Industry	Performing arts
Founded	1919
Founder	Thomas Harold Meek (Edouard Albion)
Defunct	1936
Headquarters	Washington, D.C. , United States
Products	Opera performances

The Washington National Opera Association, originally established in 1919 under the name Washington Community Opera, operated as a modestly funded opera troupe in Washington, D.C. until 1936. This organization is distinct from the later entity bearing the same title and adopted its definitive name by 1921.

History

The company was initiated by Thomas Harold Meek, a baritone born in Canada who assumed the professional name Edouard Albion after relocating to Washington and founding a vocal instruction studio. Meek enlisted soprano Enrica Clay Dillon to serve as the inaugural Artistic Director from 1919 through 1927.

The troupe debuted on January 13, 1919, with a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance. Its repertoire soon expanded to include Balfe's The Bohemian Girl, Bizet's Carmen, Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, and Gounod's Faust, which also marked the conducting debut of Arnold Volpe. The first fully professional principal cast appeared in a 1920 presentation of Carmen, starring Belgian soprano Marguerita Sylva alongside Czech tenor Otakar Marák. Other distinguished performers who appeared with the company included Mabel Garrison, Jeanne Gordon, Louise Homer, Edith Mason, Pasquale Amato, George Baklanov, Edward Johnson, Giuseppi Danise, and Titta Ruffo.

Throughout its span of over ninety performances, the company reached several significant achievements: notably in 1925, it secured Feodor Chaliapin’s inaugural operatic engagement in Washington by prevailing over the Chicago Opera in legal proceedings and presented the operatic debut of John Charles Thomas at the National Opera House located at 19th and E Streets.

In 1926, it mounted the United States’ first Russian-language staging of Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades by an established opera company—this being the first performance in that language since its German-language premiere at the Metropolitan Opera sixteen years prior. It is probable that Dmitri Smirnov delivered his sole American performances with this company after departing from the Met in 1912.

Romanian maestro George Georgescu made his only appearance conducting opera in the United States when he substituted for Jacques Samossoud amid contractual disagreements; Georgescu was renowned for leading New York’s Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra following Arturo Toscanini’s illness.

In 1928, Johanna Gadski returned to performing on American opera stages for the first time since her Metropolitan Opera departure due to anti-German wartime sentiment, appearing in Die Walküre. That same year featured the American premiere of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Hugh the Drover, conducted by Eugene Goossens and starring Tudor Davies.

The company’s second-to-last production occurred in 1936 with Léo Delibes' Lakmé, which marked Bidu Sayão’s debut on U.S. soil despite conflicts that necessitated accompaniment by a portable organ.

Economic hardships from the Great Depression combined with constraints imposed by the National Opera House led to a reduction in activity and ultimately caused the company's closure. Opera performances in Washington remained scarce until the 1950s, when open-air summer productions resumed at venues such as Carter Barron Amphitheatre. Among these was a 1965 rendition of Carmen featuring a young Plácido Domingo alongside mezzo-soprano Rosalind Elias.

References

Notes

Sources

• Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane. Washington National Opera 1956 - 2006. Washington, D.C.: Washington National Opera, 2006. .