Ninety years ago this summer, Ralph Lyford, head of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music’s opera department, brought together a group of talented local vocalists, three dozen members of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and six professional singers he had recruited from around the country. Based on the reception Lyford and his students had received the previous summer when they performed with members of the CSO on the Zoo’s concert season, he was convinced that there was enough local interest to support an opera company.
Lyford planned a seven-week season that included seven fully-staged operas—Martha, Rigoletto, The Barber of Seville, Pagliacci, The Secret of Suzanne, Don Pasquale, and Hansel and Gretel—as well as scenes from Il Trovatore, Faust, and Carmen. The operas were to be performed in the renovated bandshell, featuring a large stage with a proscenium, renamed the Zoo Opera Pavilion. Lyford and his troupe were confident they could pull it off. Still, opening night exceeded everyone’s expectations.
Although local newspapers had been buzzing for days about the upcoming opera season at the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens, no one was prepared for the size of the crowd that filled the Zoo grounds the evening of June 27, 1920, to see the fledgling company’s first production, Martha. Four hundred reserved seats had been sold for $1 each, but when patrons began to make their way to the pavilion, it quickly became clear that there weren’t nearly enough seats to accommodate the crowd. In fact, the standing audience stretched in all directions far beyond the few free benches that had been added at the back of the pavilion. Many that evening merely heard the performance, never getting close enough to see the stage. Any doubts that Cincinnatians were enthusiastic about making fully-staged operas a regular part of their summer entertainment disappeared that night, and that was music to the ears of Lyford, founding father of what we know today as Cincinnati Opera, the nation’s second-oldest opera company.
The fact is, live opera had been a staple of the city’s rich musical heritage stretching back through most of the 19th century. An amateur troupe reportedly staged the first opera, The Poor Soldier, in 1801 when the city was little more than a frontier outpost. By the latter half of the century, no less than four “opera houses” downtown regularly featured soloists and touring European companies. Later on, just about every vaudeville or stage show featured a soprano, tenor, or baritone who would add class to the evening’s entertainment with an aria. From its opening in 1875, the Zoo had also hosted operatic performances, including one infamous 1885 production of H.M.S. Pinafore, staged on a barge in the artificial lake. When the chorus moved in tandem to the end where the orchestra was seated, the barge capsized. Luckily Cincinnati Opera, in its 90 years, has never had any unplanned drama to quite equal that.
After the success of that first season, the Cincinnati Zoo Opera expanded rapidly. For several decades, summer opera seasons ran from 6 to 10 weeks and productions grew more elaborate and ambitious each year. Although the company remained dedicated to filling secondary roles with talented locals, major roles were filled with singers from New York, Boston, and Chicago. The chorus and orchestra steadily increased in size, and the behind-the-scenes staff quickly grew as well, with the addition of an assistant conductor, stage manager, costume designer, chorus master, and choreographer. In the late 1920s, live radio broadcasts were added, and in 1928 the company presented its first production of Die Meistersinger with 109 singers onstage.
Things didn’t always run smoothly, of course. The 1925 season was canceled after Lyford resigned too late to find a substitute. Money troubles threatened more than one season during the first few decades, although the company has been blessed with guardian angels throughout its history who generously reached into their deep pockets to solve any number of financial dilemmas.
Despite challenges, the prestige of the Cincinnati Summer Opera Company grew far beyond the borders of Greater Cincinnati during its first 25 years, thanks, in large part, to conductor Fausto Cleva’s long reign (1934 to 1963) as musical director; the company’s relationship with singers from the Metropolitan Opera; and World War II. Cleva, who had first conducted here in 1927, was a regular on the podium at the Met throughout his long career. His connections resulted in a steady stream of major stars who were happy to come to Cincinnati when the Met went on hiatus each summer. It became a great place to try out roles. Cincinnatians were the first to see Gladys Swarthout and Risë Stevens perform Carmen, Grace Moore do her first Manon, Jerome Hines his first Don Giovanni, Roberta Peters her first Gilda and Lucia, and Dorothy Kirsten her first Tosca. In the 1940s, when the war and its aftermath stranded European singers in the U.S., many found a home at the summer opera, including the late Italo Tajo, who made his American debut here in 1949 in Don Giovanni.
By the late 1950s, the company was in transition again, establishing a full-time, year-round staff for the first time and placing the artistic direction of the company in the hands of Met stage director Dino Yannopoulos and scenic and costume designer Wolfgang Roth. They were poised to take a more contemporary approach with productions. Traditional sets were replaced with minimalist interpretations, and new concepts in lighting, costumes, and choreography were introduced.
The internal structure of the company would continue to change and evolve over time to meet the needs of an ever-expanding organization. The mid- and late-1960s were an extremely rich time of operatic superstars who became regulars, such as Beverly Sills, John Alexander, Norman Treigle, and Plácido Domingo. A few singers even inaugurated what would become signature roles: Martina Arroyo performed her first Aida in 1964 and Sherrill Milnes his first Scarpia the following year. One notable final performance took place as well: on July 8, 1967, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf sang the role of the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier for the last time.
As early as 1933, there was talk of moving the opera from the Zoo. At least two other locations had test-runs before Music Hall became the only serious alternative. The 1934 season was staged at the University of Cincinnati’s Nippert Stadium when the company and the Zoo couldn’t come to terms at the end of the ’33 season. By the summer of 1935, they’d patched their differences and the company returned to the Zoo.
In 1951, a few performances were held at Cincinnati Gardens, but that experiment went terribly wrong when the heat caused the ice rink under the temporary wooden floor to melt. By the end of one performance, patrons found themselves sitting in a sauna in several inches of water. For the next 20 years, the summer opera remained at the Zoo, but it was clear that it needed a more accommodating and comfortable home.
Although the pavilion had been expanded many times for the sake of the patrons and the performers, there were problems that couldn’t be fixed. Unpredictable summer storms often drenched the audience seated near the outside of the covered pavilion, and the backstage area was never adequate to meet the needs of the singers, musicians, and stage crew. The heat and humidity bothered everyone. Then there were the sounds and smells of the Zoo’s primary tenants. Many an operatic solo turned into a duet with a screeching peacock or roaring lion.
It would take several years and millions of dollars (much of it provided by Mr. and Mrs. J. Ralph Corbett and The Corbett Foundation) in renovations before the Cincinnati Summer Opera would move to its new home in Music Hall. The new era was finally launched on June 28, 1972, with a star-studded production of Mefistofele featuring Norman Treigle, John Alexander, and Carol Neblett with Julius Rudel on the podium. For the first time in the company’s history, patrons sat in air-conditioned comfort and no longer had to worry about pop-up storms or noisy creatures.
In the greater opera world, what has gone on at Cincinnati Opera has always mattered, but the stakes have only gotten higher since the company moved to Elm Street. The facility allowed the company to take a more elaborate and sophisticated approach to staging, raising the production values to the level of the musical standards. In the 1970s and 80s, Artistic Director James de Blasis also introduced programs to train and mentor young singers and educational outreach became a focus of year-round activities.
Giving audiences a chance to see operas never presented here before has been a hallmark of the past decade and a half. Under the guidance of General Director Patricia Beggs, former Artistic Director Nicholas Muni, and current Artistic Director Evans Mirageas, Cincinnati Opera premieres have included Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine, Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, and last season’s magnificent Ainadamar by Osvaldo Golijov. During the summer of 2005, the company received worldwide attention with the premiere of its first mainstage commission, Margaret Garner, by American composer Richard Danielpour and with a libretto by renowned poet and novelist Toni Morrison.
With plans to renovate and renew Music Hall, the company is once again poised for new and exciting possibilities and the many challenges that are always a part of moving forward. Looking back over the company’s 90-year track record of successes, there’s every reason to believe that Cincinnati Opera, its patrons, and the city are committed to keeping great opera a mainstay of our cultural riches.
Kathleen Doane is a freelance journalist who writes about the arts. She is a retired Senior Editor of Cincinnati Magazine where she covered the local fine arts scene for 10 years. Prior to that she was an Assistant Features Editor at The Cincinnati Enquirer.
