The rise and fall of French Opera in New Orleans frames the Nineteenth Century, from the first recorded performance of opera in the city in 1796 to the tragic burning of the French Opera House in 1919. In the early part of the century the New Orleans opera houses imported talented European musicians and singers and presented some of the finest opera in the United States. In 1796 Grétry’s “Silvain” was performed at the St. Peter Street Theater, the first recorded performance of opera in New Orleans. During the 1805-06 season the St. Peter Street Theater presented twenty-three performances of at least sixteen different operas to a city with a population of only twelve thousand people. Soon other companies were brought to the city and a rivalry developed between John Davis, a French-born refugee from St. Domingue who operated the Orleans Theater, and James Caldwell, an American who oversaw the Camp Street Theater. Competition between these theaters mirrored the tensions that existed between the Anglophone and Francophone sections of the city. Each group prided itself on the accomplishments of its opera troupe and boasted of the superiority of their artists. Giacomo Meyerbeer’s “Robert le Diable,” a perineal favorite, first premiered in New Orleans in 1835 at Caldwell’s Camp Street Theater, then opened six weeks later at Davis’s Orleans Street Theater. Critics from the French and English language press each claimed that their company’s performance of “Robert Le Diable” was far superior to the other’s. From 1827 to 1833 Davis traveled with a troupe of fifty performers to cities on the East Coast of the United States during the summer off-season in New Orleans. “Le Pré Aux Clercs” by Ferdinand Hérold was performed in New York by this “Compagnie Française de la Nouvelle Orleans.” Thus Creole New Orleans was, in this respect, an exporter of French culture to the rest of the United States.
 

See: Henry A. Kmen. Music in New Orleans: The Formative Years, 1791-1841. (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1966).

 Case 19 Gallery:

Photograph. "Mlle de Biazi, Première Danseuse; French Opera Saison 1896-1897." in De La Pouyade Collection.
[B: 63, folder 5]

Model for Scenery. New Orleans Courtyard with Fountain and Banana Plant. in De La Pouyade Collection.
[B: 63, folder 9]

Libretto. Le Pré Aux Clercs. Ferdinand Hérold, paroles de M.E. Planard. (New York: F.G. Berteau, n.d.)
[Hill La Rare ML 50. H566 P73]

Libretto. Robert Le Diable. Giacomo Meyerbeer (Napoleonville, LA: Impr. du pionnier de l’Assomption, 1858).
[Hill La Rare ML 50 M623 R62 1858]

Libretto. Silvain. Jean François Marmontel, M. Grétry. (Paris, Merlin, 1770).
[Hill Rare 848 M345s]

Model for Scenery. Stone building facade with three doors. in De La Pouyade Collection.
[B: 63, folder 9]