Articles on the Academy of Music stockholders and Christine Nilsson

Event Information

Venue(s):
Academy of Music

Event Type:
Opera

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
2 June 2023

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

06 Oct 1870

Performers and/or Works Performed

LIST OF PERFORMER(S)/ORGANIZATION(S)

Participants: Christine Nilsson

Citations

Article: New York Herald, 06 October 1870, 6.

“It is reported that the only obstruction in the way of a brilliant season of Italian opera, with the charming Nilsson and a first rate company, is with the stockholders of the Academy of Music. It remains for these few persons to say whether the city of New York shall have or not this most delightful and refining of all amusements, with the highest order of talent. How is this? The answer is very simple. Miss Nilsson wishes to appear in opera. She is so gratified by her reception here and with the American people and country that she would be pleased to show her fine ability on a more extended scale than in concert. Mr. Strakosch, the manager, and the members of the Nilsson company desire this also. We are assured, in fact, that we should have opera, for a short season at least, in a style that has rarely been witnessed in this country, and such as we may not have an opportunity of seeing again for a long time; but, it cannot be given unless the stockholders of the Academy surrender their claim to exclusive seats. That is the sine qua non. The question is, then, will they be so selfish as to deprive New York, as well as themselves, of this rare opportunity for enjoying a brilliant season of opera? Can it be possible that they will stand in the way for the sake of a few dollars that they might have to pay for seats, as the rest of the community pay? If they should be so mean as that, and have no more regard for the public and the cultivation of a taste for the highest order of music, their conduct will be severely condemned. The list of names of these Academy stockholders would be long remembered as a black list by the community of New York. Miss Nilsson has to return to Europe in March to fulfil [sic] her engagements there. The series of concerts at Steinway Hall will end Saturday. There are but two more, one on Friday night and a matinée on Saturday. We might possibly hear this exquisite singer again in concert after her performances in other cities; but it is in opera where she is most brilliant, and where we ought to see her, if the Academy stockholders will permit. It is seldom that such a bright star appears above our horizon or in the world. There has been no exaggeration or clap-trap to influence the public. Everything about her appearance, as well as in the management, is genuine. From the touches of opera which Miss Nilsson has given in the concert hall we can well imagine how very charming she must be in full operatic performance. Shall we have that? What say the stockholders? It remains for them to decide.”

Article: New York Herald, 08 October 1870, 6.

“An evening contemporary, the Mail, says truly that in this community ‘there is a growing desire to hear Miss Nilsson in opera,’ that ‘the glimpses which we get of her remarkable histrionic powers are just sufficient to excite an impatient curiosity to see her with all the advantages of costume and stage surroundings.’ It further appears, from the same authority, that ‘Mr. Strakosch says he would engage the Academy of Music, but for the fact that the stockholders insist on their old privilege of the best seats, and the Herald calls the stockholders by naughty names because they will not give up their legal rights.’ But, continues our aforesaid contemporary, ‘so far as they are concerned, we should say that they had better pay for their seats than to let the season elapse without operatic performances in their splendid auditorium;’ and to ‘the Herald and other critics of the stockholders we would say that if there are two hundred and fifty other gentlemen in New York who will contribute as liberally towards the expense of the Italian opera in this city as the much-abused stockholders have done, there will be no further trouble about a Nilsson season.’

This does not meet the case. Those two hundred and fifty of the best seats reserved by the stockholders for themselves are the difficulty. Here, too, lies the main secret of the many failures of the opera at this Academy. The public do not like the idea of being invited to the second table at first table prices. They do not like to be distributed around in the back seats, with the positive refusal of certain front seats on any terms because they are reserved to the stockholders. The public, in fact, do not like the notion of supporting an establishment for the exhibition in its best seats of its two hundred and fifty stockholders from night to night and from season to season. The reservation of these best seats, or of any seats, to the stockholders, as their exclusive property, in a purely business view was a blunder from the beginning. Nor can the Academy be turned to any profit in Italian opera while this blunder is persisted in. Let the stockholders, on the other hand, invite Mr. Strakosch to a contract for a Nilsson operatic season, embracing the absolute surrender of those reserved seats, and the experiment, we are sure, will not only be a great success, but the beginning of a series of successes under the same system. Let the public know that there is no exclusive set in the Academy which they must recognize, but that the public and the stockholders meet there on the American platform of equality, and the hitherto unfortunate Academy of Music will cease to be a losing concern to the stockholders and the house of ruin to operatic managers.”

Article: New York Post, 10 October 1870, 2.

“The universal desire to hear Miss Nilsson in opera has given rise to much inquiry as to the business arrangements of the Academy of Music. The Nilsson management declares that it cannot make an operatic season there meet expenses while the stockholders hold two hundred and fifty of the best seats in the house, without paying for them. The same cause has, it is often assorted, paralyzed previous operatic enterprises at this establishment, and has resulted, it is said, in the financial discomfiture of many successive managers. At least, every impressario who fails to make money from the opera promptly attributes his ill success to this cause.

A correspondent of the Herald who has a turn for statistics furnishes some figures which, if correct, would prove that the Academy is even now, when occupied scarcely half the time, a handsomely paying investment. He writes: [quotes the figures from the New York Herald article, which is provided as separate citation in this event entry].

The estimate of receipts seems to us in some instances to be overdrawn; and it is easy for even the uninitiated to suggest items of necessary expense which are not here mentioned. Yet allowing for all this it would appear that the Academy of conducted in a manner more advantageous to its owners than to the general public. If it be viewed as a business establishment based on ordinary commercial rules, there is no fault to be found with this result. But if it be considered as a school of art, intended for the benefit of the public and the furtherance of musical education, it may be questioned whether the present system of management and the preservation of the stockholders’ privileges are well calculated to bring about the desired end.”