While the Civil War interrupted the New Orleans Opera for several seasons, the New Orleans public soon enjoyed a grand new home for Opera. Designed by the great New Orleans architect James Gallier Jr., and built in 1859, the French Opera House was the home to opera for the second half of the Nineteenth Century. Traveling Italian and German companies were first to perform for the theater-starved public after the war. It was not until the 1867-68 season that a resident company was assembled in Europe and brought to New Orleans to perform at the French Opera House. But various managerial and financial problems plagued the company at the French Opera house, forcing the cancellation of the 1872-73 season. In 1873 Louis Placide Canonge, the New Orleans journalist and playwright, took control of the troubled French Opera House and directed the troop there for two years until he was forced out by a group of disgruntled musicians. After a four year absence, the French Opera House opened again for the 1878-79 season and presented the New Orleans premier of Bizet’s “Carmen” . In the last two decades of the century the French Opera House stabilized under the direction of Frédéric Mauge, and visits by such operatic luminaries as Adelina Patti in 1881 and 1885, and Sarah Bernhardt in 1892 were highlights of the opera season. In 1892 Léona Queyrouze published a poem dedicated to Bernhardt, "Le Sonnet Impromptu" , that praises the world-famous singer. The French Opera in New Orleans gradually declined during the first decades of the Twentieth Century. After a six-year period in which no resident company occupied the French Opera House, there was again in 1919 a French Company presenting grand opera in the city. Six weeks into the season, on December 4, 1919, the French Opera House burned to the ground.
 

See: Lewis Joseph Richard Jr. The Development of Opera in New Orleans from the Civil War to the Burning of the French Opera House in 1919. (Unpublished Thesis, LSU, 1959).

Case 20 Gallery:

French Opera Programs"La Juive" Halevy, 11/10/1888, "Les Huguenots" Meyerbeer, 3/2/1889. "L’Africaine” Meyerbeer, 12/30/1889. "Lucia di Lammermoor", Donizetti, 11/29/90. "Le Prophete", Meyerbeer, 3/3/1889. in John L. Peytavin Papers.
[C: 28, 1st and 2nd folders E: 57]

French Opera Programs"La Juive" Halevy, 11/10/1888, "Les Huguenots" Meyerbeer, 3/2/1889. "L’Africaine” Meyerbeer, 12/30/1889. "Lucia di Lammermoor", Donizetti, 11/29/90. "Le Prophete", Meyerbeer, 3/3/1889. in John L. Peytavin Papers.
[C: 28, 1st and 2nd folders E: 57]

French Opera Programs"La Juive" Halevy, 11/10/1888, "Les Huguenots" Meyerbeer, 3/2/1889. "L’Africaine” Meyerbeer, 12/30/1889. "Lucia di Lammermoor", Donizetti, 11/29/90. "Le Prophete", Meyerbeer, 3/3/1889. in John L. Peytavin Papers.
[C: 28, 1st and 2nd folders E: 57]

French Opera Programs"La Juive" Halevy, 11/10/1888, "Les Huguenots" Meyerbeer, 3/2/1889. "L’Africaine” Meyerbeer, 12/30/1889. "Lucia di Lammermoor", Donizetti, 11/29/90. "Le Prophete", Meyerbeer, 3/3/1889. in John L. Peytavin Papers.
[C: 28, 1st and 2nd folders E: 57]

French Opera Programs"La Juive" Halevy, 11/10/1888, "Les Huguenots" Meyerbeer, 3/2/1889. "L’Africaine” Meyerbeer, 12/30/1889. "Lucia di Lammermoor", Donizetti, 11/29/90. "Le Prophete", Meyerbeer, 3/3/1889. in John L. Peytavin Papers.
[C: 28, 1st and 2nd folders E: 57]

Photograph. "Creatore at French Opera House, Sun mat. and night” in Picture Collection.
[Picture Collection, E: 68, "C" Box]

Photograph. French Opera House. in Mugnier Collection.
[Mugnier U: 104, #6]

Invitation for the Opera (1889) in Charles Clark Family Papers.
[UU: 254, Box 3, folder 31]

Newspaper Clipping. "Le Sonnet Impromptu." Léona Queyrouze, 1892. in Léona Queyrouze Papers.
[UU: 71, Box 7A, folder 7: 53]

Engraving. "Carmen" in L'Opéra et Ses Hôtes sous la direction de G. de Beauplan. Fernand Armant. (New Orleans, 18--).
[Hill Louisiana Rare ML 1171.8 N5 A75]

Engraving. Sarah Bernhardt in Le voyage de Sarah Bernhardt en Amérique. Marie Colombier (Paris: M. Dreyfous, 1881).
[Hill Louisiana Rare PN 2638 B5C7]