112 PART 1 | FROM COLONIZATION THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR
OPERA STARS AND COMPANIES
In March 1826, on the night before her eighteenth birthday, Maria García mar-
ried a merchant in New York. Several months later, the rest of the company left
for an engagement in Mexico, and she, as Madame Malibran, stayed behind.
Her performances had already received high praise; but now the young mezzo-
soprano made the leap from singer to full-fl edged star and won New Yorkers’
hearts. With her chance to sing Italian operas gone, she learned English ones,
showing skill as both actress and singer whenever she stepped onstage. Early in
1827 a critic wrote: “She not only knew her own part perfectly, but prompted
the others, and directed the whole stage arrangement.” Malibran was lauded for
good taste, dignity of deportment, lack of exaggeration, charm, simplicity, ease,
and grace—the fi rst woman of the stage whom the American public accepted as
“respectable.” By the time she left for Europe in 1827, she was earning $500 per
night in New York while still turning a profi t for theater owners and managers.
A charismatic star like Malibran could make audience members feel that
she was playing directly to them. Stars overshadowed other players—a fact that
stock companies tried to minimize by passing lead roles around. Before Mal-
ibran, singers of star quality on the American stage had remained within the
company’s hierarchy, receiving higher pay than lesser players but still under the
manager’s control. The audience appeal of Malibran, however, shifted public
attention toward herself and away from the company. As a result of the rise of
such stars, the power of managers declined, and that of public opinion grew.
From the 1820s on, theatrical performance revolved more and more around
stars, which meant that fi nding and presenting them became a key part of
a manager’s business. One could write the history of musical performance in
America by tracing variations on the category of star: a singing actress like Mali-
bran; an operatic tenor like Enrico Caruso; a jazz musician like Louis Armstrong;
a rock-and-roll singer like Elvis Presley; a music video phenomenon like Michael
Jackson. All of these individuals managed in performance not only to connect
with audiences but to fi ll them with wonder and hence to assume a public image
that was larger than life. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, no
other star-producing forum equaled that of the operatic stage.OPERA IN NEW ORLEANS AND SAN FRANCISCO
Between 1827 and 1833 almost the only non-English operas in New York, Phila-
delphia, Boston, and Baltimore were presented by the company of the Théâtre
d’Orléans from New Orleans, under John Davis’s management. The company’s
summer tours brought to Northern audiences operas by French composers and
carried on a tradition dating back to 1796 in New Orleans, when French opera
was fi rst performed in a local theater. New Orleans was home to many French
and Spanish citizens—often called Creoles in those years, whatever their race—
whose cultural ties to the United States were tenuous and who desired to remain
culturally distinct from the Americans they scorned. In New Orleans, present-
ing French operas was a way to assert French identity.
Davis’s company set a standard of high quality and lavish expense. In 1822
Davis traveled to France and brought back actors, singers, instrumentalists, and
dancers, the latter for the ballets that French opera required. Beginning with the172028_05_106-131_r3_ko.indd 112 23/01/13 8:20 PM