40°43′48.5″N73°59′30.5″W / 40.730139°N 73.991806°W /40.730139; -73.991806
TheAstor Opera House, also known as theAstor Place Opera House and later theAstor Place Theatre,[1] was anopera house inLower Manhattan,New York City, onLafayette Street betweenAstor Place andEast 8th Street. Designed byIsaiah Rogers (1800–1869), in theClassical Revival style of architecture, inspired by the temples ofAncient Greece andRome of two thousand years earlier. The theater was conceived by impresario Edward Fry, the brother of composerWilliam Henry Fry (1813–1864), who managed the famed opera house during its entire history.[2][3]
Fry engaged the Sanquerico and Patti Opera Company under the management of John Sefton to perform the first season of opera at the house. The opera house opened on November 22, 1847 with a performance ofGiuseppe Verdi'sErnani with Adelino Vietti in the title role.[4] Sefton and his company were not re-engaged by Fry, and the opera management of the house went to Cesare Lietti for the second season. During his tenure the opera house presented the United States premiere of Verdi'sNabucco on April 4, 1848.[5]
Lietti was also replaced after one season, and the Astor's third and longest lasting opera manager,Max Maretzek (1821-1897), was hired for the third season, which commenced in November 1848.[6] The following year Maretzek founded his own opera company, theMax Maretzek Italian Opera Company, with whom he continued to stage operas at the Astor Opera House through to 1852.[7][8] Under Maretzek, the opera house saw the New York premiere of Donizetti'sAnna Bolena on January 7, 1850 with soprano Apollonia Bertucca (later Maretzek's wife) as the title heroine.[9]
The theatre was built with the intention of attracting only the "best" patrons, the "uppertens" of New York high society, who were increasingly turning out to see European singers and productions who appeared at local venues such asNiblo's Garden. It was expected that an opera house would be:
a substitute for a general drawing room – a refined attraction which the ill-mannered would not be likely to frequent, and around which the higher classes might gather, for the easier interchange of courtesies, and for that closer view which aides the candidacy of acquaintance.[10]
In pursuit of this agenda, the theatre was created with the comfort of the upper classes in mind: benches, the normal seating in theatres at the time, were replaced by upholstered seats, available only by subscription, as were the two tiers of boxes. On the other hand, 500 general admission patrons were relegated to the benches of a "cockloft" reachable only by a narrow stairway, and otherwise isolated from the gentry below,[3] and the theatre enforced a dress code which required "freshly shaven faces, evening dress, and kid gloves".[11]
Limiting the attendance of the lower classes was partly intended to avoid the problems of rowdyism and hooliganism and common street crime which plagued other theaters in the entertainment district at the time, especially in the theatres further south on theBowery. Nevertheless, it was the deadly infamousAstor Place Riot, only a year and a half after opening on May 10, 1849 which caused the theatre to close permanently – provoked by competing performances ofMacbeth by English actorWilliam Charles Macready (1793–1873), at the Opera House (which was then operating under the name "Astor Place Theatre", not being able to sustain itself on a full season of opera) and AmericanShakespearean actorEdwin Forrest (1806–1872), at the nearbyBroadway Theatre earlier venue of 1889–1929, on 41st Street.
After the riot, the theater was unable to overcome the reputation of being the "Massacre Opera House" at "DisAster Place".[12] By May 1853, the interior had been dismantled and the furnishings sold off, with the shell of the building sold for $140,000[13] to theNew York Mercantile Library, which renamed the building "Clinton Hall".[14]
In 1890, in need of additional space, the library tore down the opera house building and replaced it with an 11-story building, also called Clinton Hall, which still stands on the site.[15]
Notes
Bibliography
Media related toClinton Hall (former Astor Opera House) at Wikimedia Commons