Academy of Music (New York City)
General information | |
---|---|
Location | Manhattan, New York |
Address | 126 East 14th Street |
Coordinates | 40°44′04″N 73°59′19″W / 40.734568°N 73.988489°W |
Opened | 1854 |
Demolished | 1926 |
The Academy of Music was a New York City
The Academy's opera season became the center of social life for New York's elite, with the oldest and most prominent families owning seats in the theater's boxes. The opera house was destroyed by fire in 1866
Opera house
The Academy of Music has been described as "the first successful dedicated opera house in the United States",[4] but it was not the first building in New York designed specifically for opera.[5] That honor goes to the Italian Opera House built in 1833 by Lorenzo Da Ponte as a home for his new New York Opera Company, which lasted only two seasons before the company was disbanded and the theatre sold.[6] Over a decade later, in 1847, the Isaiah Rogers-designed Astor Opera House opened on Astor Place,[7] only to close several years later after a riot provoked by competing performances of Macbeth by English actor William Macready at the Opera House and American Edwin Forrest at the nearby Broadway Theatre. By May 1853, the interior had been dismantled and the furnishings sold off, with the shell of the building sold to the Mercantile Library Association.[8]
It was the demise of the Astor Opera House that spurred New York's elite to build a new opera house in what was then the more genteel neighborhood of
Its first opera season was from October through December 1854. The
His company was not the only group active at the opera house during this time. Musicologist George Whitney Martin writes:New York's Academy of Music, from 1854 to 1883 the city's leading house for opera, did not offer a secure base to any opera company. And why? Because it was primarily a real estate venture run by a board of investors seeking the highest rent possible."[21]
Other opera companies active at the Academy, including Jaime Nunó's Havana Italian Opera Troupe and the Max Strakosch Italian Opera Company,[22] the latter of which began performing at the Academy in 1860, only to merge with Maretzek's company in 1868.[23] The Academy hosted several American premieres, including Rigoletto (1855), Il trovatore (1855), La traviata (1856), Roméo et Juliette (1867), Aida (1873), Lohengrin (1874), Die Walküre (1877) and Carmen (1878).[19][24]
The Academy's opera season became the center of social life for New York's wealthy gentry, but from its inception, the Academy of Music not only presented opera, but also served as a theater, and a meeting and exposition hall for a wide variety of functions, including political rallies, charity balls and science and industry fairs, among other events. In 1860, it was the site of a reception for the Prince of Wales.[12] After the Civil War, an organization called the Cercle Français de l'Harmonie began using the Academy as a venue for masked balls, also called "French balls", in which the nouveau riche men of New York society would rub elbows – and other body parts – with semi-dressed prostitutes and courtesans, with little regard for public decorum or modesty. These balls were covered by the press, which did little to dim the enthusiasm or ribald behavior of the participants. One reporter wrote that women were thrown in the air and then sexually assaulted "amid the jeers and laughter of the other drunken wretches on the floor ... [with] not a whisper of shame in the crowd".[25] These spectacles grew in size over the following decades: in 1876, one such ball was attended by over 4,000 people.[25] Feminist editor Victoria Woodhull condemned the sexual hypocrisy of the French balls in 1873 in Woodhull and Clafliin's Weekly, complaining that the Academy of Music was being used "for the purpose of debauching debauched women; and the trustees of the Academy know this".[26]
Still, it was the opera season that made the Academy the mainstay of social life for New York's "
In 1888, the Academy began to offer vaudeville. The Drury Lane import The White Heather had a successful 148-performance run for the 1897–98 season. Between 1895 and 1899, Rev. Thomas Dixon Jr., delivered sermons there. From January 28 to March 1901, a revival of Clyde Fitch's play Barbara Frietchie appeared there.
The venue was rented by labor organizations in the early 1900s and used to stage rallies. In 1926, it was demolished, along with its neighbor Tammany Hall, for the construction of the Consolidated Edison Building.
Movie theater
On the south side of 14th Street across from the site of the opera house, a movie theatre opened in 1927 which took the name the Academy of Music. It was built as a 3,000-seat deluxe movie palace by movie mogul William Fox, and was designed by Thomas W. Lamb. It served as a venue for rock concerts in the 1960s and early 1970s, with its name being changed to "The Palladium" by promoter Ron Delsner in September 1976.[29] In 1985, it was converted into the Palladium nightclub, designed by Arata Isozaki.[30][31] The theater was bought and demolished by New York University, and replaced by the present Palladium Residence Hall, which opened in 2001.[30]
In literature and popular culture
The second paragraph of
References
Notes
- ^ a b c "Opening of the Academy of Music" (PDF). The New York Times. October 3, 1854.
- ^ "Amusements" (PDF). The New York Times. October 5, 1854.
- ^ "The Great Fire; Details of the Disaster". The New York Times. 1866-05-23. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
- JSTOR 2568817.
- ^ It was not the first dedicated opera house built in the United States either, which was the Théâtre d'Orléans, built in New Orleans in 1819 as the city's first house designed for opera. See Belsom, Jack (2007). A History of Opera in New Orleans
- ^ Burrows & Wallace 1999, p. 585.
- ^ Burrows & Wallace 1999, p. 724.
- ^ "Exclusiveness" (PDF). The New York Times. May 27, 1853.
- ^ Burrows & Wallace 1999, pp. 761–765.
- ^ a b 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- ^ "The New Opera-House" (PDF). The New York Times. June 9, 1852.
- ^ a b Mendelsohn 1998, p. 54
- ^ Israelowitz, Oscar. Oscar Israelowitz's Guide to Jewish New York City New York: Israelowitz Pub., 2004.
- ^ New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. "Anshe Chesed Synagogue Designation Report" (February 10, 1987)
- ^ New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. "NYCLPC NoHo Historic District Designation Report" Archived 2015-02-19 at the Wayback Machine (June 29, 1999)
- ^ "The New Opera-House" (PDF). The New York Times. June 12, 1852. Note: This is not the same article as the June 9 one with the same title.
- ^ Burrows & Wallace 1999, p. 765.
- ^ Oscar Thompson; Nicolas Slonimsky (1956). The International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians. Dodd, Mead & Co. p. 6.
- ^ a b Burrows & Wallace 1999, p. 961
- ^ Harold C. Schonberg (November 23, 1969). "Even the Prima Donna Blushed'" (PDF). The New York Times. p. 222.
- ISBN 978-1-58046-388-1.
- ^ Max Strakosch (1835–1892) was the younger brother of impresario Maurice Strakosch.
- ^ George Lascelles (1956). "Opera in 19th Century America". Opera. Vol. 7. p. 343.
- ISBN 978-1-58046-388-1.
- ^ a b Burrows & Wallace 1999, p. 965
- ^ Burrows & Wallace 1999, p. 1015.
- ^ Burrows & Wallace 1999, p. 1074.
- ^ Hamilton, David, ed. The Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia. Simon and Schuster, New York. 1987. pp. 249–250.
- ^ Rockwell, John "Refurbished 14th St. Palladium Opens With Program by the Band" The New York Times (September 20, 1976)
- ^ a b White & Willensky 2000
- ^ Goldberger, Paul (May 20, 1985). "An Appraisal: The Palladium: An Architecturally Dramatic New Discotheque". The New York Times.
Sources
- ISBN 0-195-11634-8.
- Mendelsohn, Joyce (1998), Touring the Flatiron: Walks in Four Historic Neighborhoods, New York: OCLC 40227695
- ISBN 978-0-8129-3107-5.
External links
- Academy of Music at the Internet Broadway Database
- Pictures of the Academy, New York Public Library
- "Academy of Music", Cinema Treasures