The San Carlo Opera Company was the name of two different

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

companies active in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century.

Henry Russell's San Carlo Opera

The first company was founded by

impresario An impresario (from the Italian ''impresa'', "an enterprise or undertaking") is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film or television producer. Hist ...

Henry Russell, initially as a touring arm of the

Teatro di San Carlo The Real Teatro di San Carlo ("Royal Theatre of Saint Charles"), as originally named by the Bourbon monarchy but today known simply as the Teatro (di) San Carlo, is an opera house in Naples, Italy, connected to the Royal Palace and adjacent t ...

of Naples, Italy, in 1904. The company soon became its own institution and toured to

The Royal Opera The Royal Opera is a British opera company based in central London, resident at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Along with the English National Opera, it is one of the two principal opera companies in London. Founded in 1946 as the Cove ...

, London, in the Fall of 1905 and

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

in early 1906. The group remained based in Boston and gave tours annually of mostly

Italian opera Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many famous ...

s throughout the United States from 1906 to 1909 in addition to giving performances in Boston. With the opening of the

Boston Opera House The Boston Opera House, also known as the Citizens Bank Opera House, is a performing arts and esports venue located at 539 Washington St. in Boston, Massachusetts. It was originally built as the B.F. Keith Memorial Theatre, a movie palace in ...

in 1909, the company essentially became the seed for the newly formed

Boston Opera Company The Boston Opera Company (BOC) was an American opera company located in Boston, Massachusetts, that was active from 1909 to 1915. History The company was founded in 1908 by Bostonian millionaire Eben Dyer Jordan, Jr. and impresario Henry Russel ...

under the leadership of Russell. Notable singers to perform with Russell's San Carlo Opera Company included

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

s Fély Dereyne,

Alice Nielsen Alice Nielsen (June 7, 1872 – March 8, 1943) was a Broadway performer and operatic soprano who had her own opera company and starred in several Victor Herbert operettas. Background Her father, Rasmus, was a Danish troubadour from Aarhus. Her m ...

Lillian Nordica Lillian Nordica (December 12, 1857 – May 10, 1914) was an American opera singer who had a major stage career in Europe and her native country. Nordica established herself as one of the foremost dramatic sopranos of the late 19th and early 20t ...

, and

Tarquinia Tarquini Tarquinia Tarquini (1882 - 25 February 1976) was an Italian dramatic soprano and the wife of composer Riccardo Zandonai. Biography Born in Colle di Val d'Elsa, Tarquini studied singing at the Milan Conservatory and privately in Florence. She ma ...

;

tenor A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...

Florencio Constantino Florencio Constantino (April 9, 1869 – November 19, 1919) was a Spanish operatic tenor who had an active international performance career from 1892 through 1917. He was particularly admired for his performances in the operas of Giuseppe Ver ...

, Riccardo Martin, and Umberto Sacchetti;

contralto A contralto () is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type. The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare; similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to that of a countertenor, typically b ...

Rosa Olitzka Rosa Olitzka (September 6, 1873 – September 29, 1949) was a German-born contralto singer. She sang with the Metropolitan Opera from 1895 to 1901, and with the Chicago Opera from 1910 to 1911. Early life Rosa Olitzka was born in Berlin; her ...

; and bass

Andrés de Segurola Andrés Perelló de Segurola (27 March 1874 – 23 January 1953) was a Spanish operatic bass. Biography He was born on 27 March 1874 in Valencia, Spain. He was a member of the Metropolitan Opera Company between 1901 and 1920 and later appeared ...

Fortune Gallo's San Carlo Opera

The second San Carlo Opera Company was a touring grand opera company founded by the Italian-American impresario

Fortune Gallo Fortune Thomas Gallo (May 9, 1878 – March 28, 1970) (born Fortunato Gallo) was an Italian-born opera impresario. Gallo was owner and General Manager of the traveling San Carlo Opera Company from 1913 until its disbandment in the late 1950s. ...

. Taking over management of a touring opera company led by

Mario Lombardi is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the title character of the ''Mario'' franchise and the mascot of Japanese video game company Nintendo. Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his cre ...

that was stranded in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

, Missouri, in 1910, Gallo brought them back to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, untangled their finances, and reorganized them as the San Carlo Opera Company, opening in December 1913 with a premier performance featuring ''

Carmen ''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first perfo ...

''. Until its disbandment in the mid-1950s, the company – 100 strong, including 30 instrumentalists – toured annually in the United States and Canada, visiting cities and towns poorly served by other companies, and often ventured as far afield as Europe, and South America. Part of Gallo's success was his innovation of using local talent and heavily advertising their use to spur ticket sales. In addition, the company was led under the musical direction of conductor Carlo Peroni from 1921 until his death twenty-three years later. Under Peroni's leadership the company fared well, and in 1927 Gallo built the Gallo Opera House on West 54th Street in New York City. It would later become

Studio 54 Studio 54 is a Broadway theater and a former disco nightclub at 254 West 54th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Operated by the Roundabout Theatre Company, Studio 54 has 1,006 seats on two levels. The theater was ...

. Gallo also worked with impresario Tomasso Nazzaro, originally from Italy, but who was establishing himself in Boston. Gallo named him the New England managing director for the San Carlo Opera, which aided in the success of the company. The San Carlo company holds the distinction of having performed in the very first sound film of a complete opera, ''

Pagliacci ''Pagliacci'' (; literal translation, "Clowns") is an Italian opera in a prologue and two acts, with music and libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo. The opera tells the tale of Canio, actor and leader of a commedia dell'arte theatrical company, who m ...

'', in 1929. Gallo did not try to turn the opera into a "moving picture", rather this was a filmed stage production, with stage sets, framed by the proscenium arch. During the war years of 1943 and 1944, Gallo produced a full season of opera in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, which had lacked a resident opera company for some years, under the name

Chicago Opera Company The Chicago Opera Company was a grand opera company in Chicago, organized from the remaining assets of the bankrupt Chicago City Opera Company, that produced six seasons of opera at the Civic Opera House from 1940 to 1946 (excluding 1943). Art ...

, using both his San Carlo company and visiting artists. Upon Peroni's death in 1944,

Nicola Rescigno Nicola Rescigno (May 28, 1916 – August 4, 2008) was an Italy, Italian-United States, American conductor (music), conductor, particularly associated with the Italian opera repertory. ''Opera News'' said that "Rescigno was a seminal figure in the ...

assumed the role of music director. He was succeeded in 1947 by

Carlo Moresco Carlo Moresco (20 May 1905 – 3 May 1990) was an American conductor, composer, violinist, and stage director of Italian birth. He was one of the most important opera conductors in the city of Philadelphia during the 20th century, working for mult ...

who served as the company's music director until its demise roughly ten years later.

Henry Russell's San Carlo Opera

Fortune Gallo's San Carlo Opera

References

Further reading