Harrison English Opera: Bohemian Girl

Event Information

Venue(s):
Niblo's Concert Saloon

Manager / Director:
Gabriel Harrison [manager]

Conductor(s):
Theodore Thomas [see also Thomas Orchestra]

Price: $.50; $1 reserved

Event Type:
Opera

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
10 September 2014

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

13 Jan 1864, Evening

Program Details

Cast includes chorus of “about twenty”

Opening Night
Manhattan Debut of the Harrison English Opera Company. They had performed in Brooklyn prior to this. Performances to continue at Niblo’s “twice a week.”

Performers and/or Works Performed

1)
aka Zegeunerin; Zigeunerin
Composer(s): Balfe
Text Author: Bunn

Citations

1)
Advertisement: New York Herald, 10 January 1864.

2)
Advertisement: New-York Times, 10 January 1864, 7.
“Powerful Chorus, Full Orchestra.”
3)
Advertisement: New York Herald, 11 January 1864.

4)
Announcement: New-York Times, 11 January 1864.

5)
Announcement: New York Herald, 13 January 1864, 4.

6)
Announcement: New-York Times, 13 January 1864, 4.

7)
Advertisement: New-York Times, 13 January 1864, 7.

8)
Review: New York Herald, 14 January 1864, 5.

“There is one great obstacle in the way of English opera in this country as far as native artists are concerned. The enterprising individuals who endeavor to get up a troupe always experience the utmost difficulty in finding artists willing to undertake the minor parts. All our singers are of the first merit (in their own estimation) – all are prime donne, and have serious objections to singing at all in English opera as by so doing they may jeopardize the magnificent positions they feel certain they are one and all called upon to occupy on the Italian operatic stage. Still a few can be found who in the interim will consent to sing the leading roles in English opera – but the minor parts, never. When the managers do succeed in finding ladies to sing these secondary roles they know beforehand that they will be but indifferently rendered, and that the ensemble of the opera will suffer accordingly. We are assured that the male singers are less ambitious, and that hence there is less difficulty as far as they are concerned. Our readers will of course understand from this preamble that Mr. Harrison’s troupe is lacking in the respect of those who undertake the minor roles in the English operas he produces, but then he has secured artists of undoubted talent in his leading parts, and herein he has been most fortunate.

The appearance of the Harrison troupe at Niblo’s Saloon last night was an event of importance in our musical history. Native artists gave a remarkable performance of an English opera – Balfe’s Bohemian Girl – with all the eclat and merit which the most critical could desire. Mme. Borchard, the prima donna, has a well cultivated sweet voice, and is certainly a very satisfactory actress. She quite took her audience by storm, eliciting the warmest applause and obtaining numerous encores.

Mr. Castle, the tenor, achieved a triumph. He has numerous admirers here, with whom he has been for several seasons a great favorite in the concert room. None were prepared, however, for the really admirable debut the artist has made in opera and his success was all the greater from that fact. Mr. S. C. Campbell was so much a favorite, and has so grand a voice that his friends felt sure he would succeed in this English opera experiment, and he had more than fulfilled their expectations. We regret that we lack space to mention in detail last night’s performance, but feel assured that the public will continue to patronize this entertainment, if only from the fact of its uncontestable merit.

In a short time Mr. Harrison will have perfected his arrangements as regards securing capable artists for all the departments of English opera. Under the talented directions of Mr. Theodore Thomas the choruses and orchestra will become all they should be, and we shall have realized one of the dearest wishes of our musical circles—the attainment of English opera, perfect in all respects—and shall have the great satisfaction of knowing that we have the elements in our midst for the compositions as well as the performance of opera. Native composers will find plots written by native authors, and the world will wake up to the fact that the people of this country can be independent of the Old World even as regards music.

There must be a commencement to all things, and Mr. Harrison deserves credit for having seriously undertaken to produce opera with American artists. Ere long he will, as we have said above, produce American operas. We heartily applaud all efforts which, like this, tend to the elevations and cultivations of native talent.

On Friday the Harrison English Opera troupe give their second performance at Niblo’s Saloon.”

9)
Review: New York Post, 15 January 1864.
The English Opera was imported from Brooklyn on Wednesday night and greeted at Niblo’s Saloon by a large and cordial audience.  The performance of the ‘Bohemian Girl’ was unusually good, both Castle and Campbell exerting themselves to please their New York hearers, while that accomplished artist, Madame Borchard, sang with her customary finish. It is understood that Mr. Harrison has decided to place his new opera company on a permanent basis, and, if possible, revive the days of the Woods and the Seguin. Wallace’s “Maritana” is in rehearsal.”
10)
Review: New-York Daily Tribune, 15 January 1864.
Long article on why there should be an American Opera in English.  Gabriel Harrison is the brother of Lafayette F. Harrison, the proprietor of Irving Hall.  

    “The ordinary appearance of a few singers in English or American opera would not be a matter of particular musical moment, but this exhibition at Niblo’s Saloon, which commenced last Wednesday and is to be continued there twice-a-week, and the same in Brooklyn, under the management of Mr. Gabriel Harrison, is, we are assured, and believe, the initial step of a long-contemplated plan on the part of this enthusiastic American manager, to render permanent, in virtue of its steady attraction and superior merits, the opera in our vernacular language. Mr. G. Harrison is a brother of Mr. Harrison the proprietor of Irving Hall, where during several years, the latter has given scores of concerts, and always with native singers, and resident performers, determined to see if there were the decency and spirit in this community to support American talent; and the appeal was – as we always contested such a one would be – successful, provided the parties appearing in public deserved success, as in those cases they did.

Niblo’s Saloon, we may remind our readers who have not lately visited it, is the former concert-room adjoining the theatre.  It has undergone a few changes, converting it into a little theatre or opera-house.  A portion of the east end of the room has been set apart for a stage; and the floor has been graded upward so as to allow the six hundred seats covering it to be equally eligible for sight and hearing perfectly; and a full body of sonorousness is created by a reduced orchestra and chorus owing to the minor size of the hall, while even the most delicate shade of the solo singers is heard and they are not fatigued by overstraining their voices to fill a vast enceinture. The hall was completely crowded on Wednesday night by a most intelligent and distinguished audience, who evinced the profoundest interest and warmest sympathy with the performance and the enterprise, and awarded their marks of approval to the leading artists by frequent encores. The opera was accordingly an entire and unqualified success, and promises, so far as an initial performance can, a complete triumph to the general enterprise of Mr. G. Harrison.

The piece was Balfe’s Bohemian Girl, the principal parts were sustained by Madame Borchard, Soprano, Mr. Castle, Tenor, and Mr. Campbell, Bass. The lady is of English parentage, but has been trained in Paris and had experience in that admirable histrionic school, the Opéra Comique.  [Castle and Campbell], Americans we believe, though well known to our concert going people, made only on this occasion, their fourth or fifth appearance on the operatic stage.

Madame Borchard has an excellent Soprano voice, with a good style and method, except in a few points. These are so few and easily corrigible that we mention them. She overdid a cadenza by repeating the climax, and over-emphasizing certain antepenultimate and penultimate notes of a phrase, very much after the fashion of certain contraltos some years since, for the purpose of displaying their low notes.  The other error was over haste in descending chromatic scales, whereby the notes were fused, instead of being given distinctly.  Her performance, however, as a whole was eminently satisfactory, and exhibited the culture of an artist and the refinement of an educated lady. The character is not a high dramatic one, but all the opportunity it afforded for acting was seized upon, and evidence thus given of ability to execute musical parts of a higher grade.

Mr. Castle has a most beautiful tenor voice—delicacy and sweetness are its characteristics; and to this must be added the heartfelt or sympathetic tone which is the indispensable quality of the love-making tenor.  It is cultivated to a considerable extent; all the music, whether more or less florid, being cleanly given.  The singer’s mode of uttering the perorations of his phrases was particularly felicitous.  As an actor, he showed no more of the novice than might be expected.

Mr. Campbell has a basso-cantante, or rather a baritone voice, of rare power.  It is full, strong, manly, and rich in tone.  There are the elements already well advanced of making a first-class singer.  He executed well all he had to do, and did better than most debutants on the stage.

The orchestra was led by a brilliant young director, Mr. Thomas, and sounded well, although necessarily not large.  It sustained the voices fully, and was conducted with spirit and accuracy.

The chorus-about twenty in number, filling the small stage—was up to its work, and made the hall resound.

If the taste of the mass of the people here has not been deteriorated and debauched by fifteen years of the nightly beastly, and brutal exhibitions of sham negro-minstrelsy, by which in a so-called Christian community, the enslaved American has been burned in the hell-fire of fresh shames and caricatures, as if chains, whips, and bloodhounds, were not enough to make him ‘Curse God and die’—if this lowest of filthy dregs has supplied the place of lyrical entertainment in the vernacular during this long period, has not crushed the taste of the masses beyond redemption—the opportunity to support well and make a permanent, honorable, and national institution of American music will be received with special satisfaction by the public, and opera will again flourish here in our language, as it did from the time when Mad. Malibran instituted it about 1827, up to the retirement of the Seguin troupe—the latter being the latest resident company of singers on the stage in this country.

We hold that after the Italian language, the English is the best for musical purposes; and as Germany has German opera, and France French opera, as national institutions, there is no valid reason why in this city and country, if we possess the taste to which we lay claim, we should not have American opera as a permanent institution.”

11)
Review: New-York Times, 18 January 1864, 8.

“The Harrison English Opera troupe gave two performances of the ‘Bohemian Girl’ at Niblo’s Saloon last week, both with immense success. The singers have vastly improved, and the orchestra and chorus were alike vigorous and excellent. We find the following sensible remarks in the Musical Review and World, and we quote them as an indication of the attention English opera is now attracting in art cirlces;” [Quotes MR&W article. See 01/09/64, Articles on English opera in New York.]

12)
Review: New York Clipper, 23 January 1864, 323.
“[W]e are borne out in our favorable comments by the good opinions since so freely expressed by the New York press generally.”