Scan 274
The American history and encyclopedia of music .., 1908
6 lines. Read by computer on 10 September 2026. Printed page 234. See the scan on archive.org.
1Here opera was performed three nights of the week, with plays in the French language on intervening nights. Within four years after its completion the Theatre d'Orleans fell a prey to fire, but Mr. Davis immediately arranged to erect a new opera house on the same site.
3The second structure was even more pretentious than was the former one, one hundred and eighty thousand dollars being expended in its erection and equipment. It gave to New Orleans a prestige in the theatrical circles of the country, and its fame also traveled beyond the ocean until artists of real merit came over from Paris. The management was proud of the fact that here in the Crescent City, as nowhere else in America, French Grand Opera was being presented in all its completeness. This new opera house, which had arisen from the ashes of the former one, was opened in 1819, and for twenty-five years John Davis, and Charles Boudausquie who succeeded him, kept to the high standard which had characterized the performances of this playhouse from its incipiency. During four nights of each week, when the operatic season was in abeyance, French comedy, drama and ballet of the highest significance graced the stage. But the Theatre d'Orleans became the special home of opera, and every season a company from Paris gave an excellent repertory of the masterpieces being performed on the operatic stage of the French capital.
5In 1842 New Orleans sent a fully equipped French opera company to New York; in fact, as the various companies passed to and from the city of New Orleans and Paris, New York frequently was given opportunity to enjoy French opera before the year in question, and Boston, in 1829, had been given its first taste of Italian opera by a French troupe en route to the Crescent City. For some decades preceding the Civil War, operatic companies, whether French, Italian, English or German, looked for reimbursement, after playing losing roles in other cities, to the gay and appreciative Louisiana capital, and today New Orleans still is something of an Eldorado for the better grade of opera companies.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.