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Recognized by many architectural historians and preservationists as one of the most important buildings in New Orleans history, the French Opera House towered over the corner of Toulouse and Bourbon Streets for sixty years and withstood some of the most impactful events the city has ever witnessed. Completed in November 1859, less than two years before the start of the Civil War, the "new" French Opera House stood as one of the last symbols of a Creole society that had been present in New Orleans for more than a century.

For its design and construction, the New Orleans Opera House Company-formed just a month before the project's groundbreaking-employed the top local architects, builders, and craftsmen of their day. What resulted was by all accounts an elegant, commodious structure both inside and out.

For many, the opera in the late nineteenth century provided a welcome escape from the disease-ridden city, seemingly in constant mourning for victims of yellow fever and cholera, and a place where a diverse group of citizens (and before the Civil War, enslaved people) could enjoy a performance in the same building, if not in the same tier. When it burned one hundred years ago, Lyle Saxon, wrote in Fabulous New Orleans that "The heart of the old French Quarter has stopped beating."

New Orleans was the first American city to offer opera as entertainment. In 1796, the Théâtre St. Pierre, staged the city's first documented opera, André Ernest Grétry's Sylvain. The Théâtre Saint-Philippe opened in 1808, and the Théâtre d'Orléans in October 1815, after being delayed because of the Battle of New Orleans. Under the leadership of Saint-Domingue native John Davis and his son Pierre, the Orléans remained the city's most important venue for concerts, operas, and balls until the 1850s. In the second quarter of the nineteenth century, theaters featuring English-language productions opened: James Caldwell's Camp Street Theatre, the New American Theatre, and the Saint Charles Theatre, which, when it opened in 1835, was the largest hall in the nation.

New Orleans-born impresario and husband of soprano Julie Calvé, Charles Boudousquié succeeded Pierre Davis as director of the Théâtre d'Orléans in 1853. In 1858 Henry Parlange purchased the Théâtre d'Orléans from the estate of businessman and philanthropist John McDonough. When Boudousquié and Parlange were unable to come to terms on the building's lease, some of the opera's oldest and wealthiest supporters formed the New Orleans Opera House Company and set out to erect a new building. As The Sunday Delta of December 4, 1859 declared, this "Temple of Song", the new Opera House, "should combine elegance and simplicity with the greatest degree of comfort possible. "

On April 18, 1859, locally renowned architects and builders James Gallier Jr. and George Esterbrook signed a contract with the Opera Company to have the French Opera House building ready by the first of November of the same year. At least one other architect, J.N.B. De Pouilly, had made designs for the Opera House, but completing a project on a grand scale in such a short time frame may have seemed impossible. The projected cost of the building and ground was about $200,000 and furnishings $50,000 more, according to the Daily Crescent, although the building contract had specified a $118,000 price tag. Esterbrook supervised the craftsmen, who included skilled stone masons, brick layers, plasterers, iron founders, slaters, plumbers, coppersmiths, and stair builders.

When the Opera House opened in December 1859, local newspapers described in detail its exterior and interior decoration, and lauded it as "a magnificent monument to [Gallier and Esterbrook's] ability, taste, and energy."

Italianate in style, the interior featured an elliptical ceiling that rose 58 feet above the floor of the pit. "Exquisite" ornaments stamped in zinc and gilt decorated the four tiers of galleries for spectators. According to The Sunday Delta 's in-depth tour of the Opera House, manager Charles Boudousquié chose these elements in Paris, and Mr. [Prudent] Mallard installed them. Flanking the stage stood four fluted Corinthian columns; the fillets and moldings of the shafts and bases were gilt, and they rested on pedestals painted and veined to imitate marble. Outside, an expansive gallery protected ladies entering and exiting their carriages in inclement weather.

Seating capacity was 1,600; with packed aisles and halls of standing spectators, the audience could reach up to 2,500. In addition to the pit, four tiers of gallery seats divided patrons by class and race. The first tier, a dress circle, consisted of 52 stalls with four seats each. The second dress circle contained eight open stalls and twenty latticed boxes, each with a small parlor behind it for receiving friends and resting during the entr'acte. The box's lessee could fit out the parlor as he or she wished, and also had at his or her disposal the advice of in-demand local furniture manufacturer and dealer Prudent Mallard.

Near the first dress-circle seating was the 60-foot-long by 26-foot wide by 28-foot high grand saloon, described in The Sunday Delta's detailed tour of the building as "lighted and ventilated by two heights of windows, with casement, sash and inside blinds...heated by two fireplaces with marble mantels...[with] two large center flowers...fixed in the ceiling, from which depend two large gas-chandeliers." There was a Club Room set aside for wealthy patrons who had purchased stock to help build the Opera House.

The third tier, plainly furnished with seats without boxes or divisions, was, according to the Delta's May 23rd description, "for the cheap admission of white people, and...equal to the pit." The fourth and highest tier was for people of color. When a writer for the Daily Delta toured the newly opened Opera House, he noted how it was necessary to enter a separate door on the St. Louis Street side and climb "a stair which conducts one in a tortuous course" to access the "colored gallery". An 1869 law would be the impetus for several lawsuits challenging the racial segregation of the Opera House.

"Architect J.N.B. De Pouilly creates two designs for a new opera house.

Image:
Jacques-Nicolas Bussière De Pouilly (1804-1875)
De Pouilly Sketchbook No. 3, 1830-1860
Ink, wash and watercolor
The Historic New Orleans Collection
1979.93
"

- 1859-1860

"The French Opera House opens for the first time, with a gala performance of Rossini's Guillaume Tell.

Image:
Jeudi, 1er Decembre 1859, ouverture du Theatre de l'Opera..., 1859
Ink on paper
The Historic New Orleans Collection
PN2277.N492 T54 1859

"

- December. 1, 1859

"Eighteen-year old Italian soprano Adelina Patti performs Robert Le Diable, Il Trovatore, and Les Huguenots."

- January 1861

"A Louisiana law forbids "discrimination in places of public resort," and over the next six years, people of color file at least fourteen lawsuits against owners of a variety of establishments. In one such suit, a free Creole of color composer named Eugène-Victor Macarty filed suit against the director of the French Opera House, E. Calabrési, for denying him access to the white seating area. Calabrési argued that his white patrons would be unwilling to sit in the same section as a person of color. The case failed to bring about any immediate resolution, but Creoles of color persisted in their fight for access to integrated seating, even staging a boycott of the Opera in the 1874-1875 season.

Image:
Alfred Rudolph Waud (1828-1891), delineator
Russell Richardson, engraver
Sunday in New Orleans, 1871
Wood engraving
The Historic New Orleans Collection, Gift of Harold Schilke and Boyd Cruise
1953.90 i-iii

"

- 1869

"The French Opera House building is put up for sale. The Daily Picayune proclaims that "a property so valuable as this...should by no means be allowed to go out of the hands of the clubs and capitalists of New Orleans. If rented for balls, parties and other entertainments part of the year, it could be leased the balance of the year for operatic and other dramatic purposes and would prove a splendid investment."

- March 1873

"Mardi Gras krewes Comus, Proteus, Nereus, and others rent out the Opera House for balls.

Mistick Krewe of Comus, distributor
Comus Invitation, 1893
Color lithograph
The Historic New Orleans Collection, The L. Kemper and Leila Moore Williams Founders Collection
1958.102.23 a,b

Krewe of Proteus, distributor
Proteus Admit Card, 1893
Color lithograph
The Historic New Orleans Collection, The L. Kemper and Leila Moore Williams Fonders Collection
1958.102.47

"

- 1880s-1890s

"The Vatican Choirs, comprised of 70 singers from the Sistine Chapel, St. John Lateran, and St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, perform at the French Opera House to a full house.

Image:
E. V. Richards, Jr., producer
Program for the Vatican Choirs appearing at the French Opera House, 1919
Paper
The Historic New Orleans Collection, Williams Research Center, Seemann Family Papers
MSS 625.5

"

- November 17, 1919

"The French Opera House is destroyed in an early morning fire.

Image:
Charles L. Franck, photographer
French Opera House after Fire, December 5, 1919
Photograph
Charles L. Franck Studio Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection
1979.89.7434

"

- December 4, 1919

"A "small but determined" group of local business and property owners meet at the Monteleone Hotel to discuss the preservation and beautification of the French Quarter, including the reconstruction of the French Opera House. (New Orleans States, February 1, 1920.)"

- January 29, 1920

Late in the evening of December 3, 1919, following a rehearsal of Carmen, the French Opera House caught fire. To this day the source of the blaze remains unknown.

Originally the building contained two lead-lined wooden reservoirs, each holding 3,500 gallons of water, with pipes that could be connected to hoses for fire protection. Whether or not an updated system had been installed since then, none of these provisions could save the building from destruction. Firefighters fought the blaze, but barely a shell remained.

Within months of the fire, French Quarter citizens and businesses, aware of a decline in the reputation of their neighborhood, at first vowed to rebuild the Opera House. That idea never came to fruition, but the year 1919 was a pivotal point in the history of New Orleans's preservation movement. From 1921 to 1937 several groups formed to focus on beautification, restoration, and preservation of the Quarter. Such local groups as the Vieux Carré Property Owners, Residents, and Associates (VCPORA) organized; the City Council created the Vieux Carré Commission to protect the neighborhood's architectural and historic character; and national programs like the Works Progress Administration and the Historic American Buildings Survey brought attention to what historic buildings had been or could be lost without further action.

As Tulane University geographer and historian Richard Campanella has noted, "Preservationists need not be reminded of the power of old buildings. We recognize them as testaments of social memory, artifacts of architecture and vessels of culture, and we know all too well how their razing lays the groundwork for historical amnesia." The destruction of the French Opera House building resulted not only in a physical void but a social one, leaving the city's Creole populations without a central space for entertainment.

For almost forty years the lot at the corner of Bourbon and Toulouse sat vacant, until 1965, when developers erected the five-story Downtowner Motor Inn. Today, the Four Points by Sheraton occupies the location.

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The Rise and Fall of the French Opera House - Hermann-Grima + Gallier Historic Houses

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Title:
The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana

Description:

The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana by Dion Boucicault. Scene "The sale of the Octoroon (Zoë)" Zoë was played by the author's wife, Agnes Robertson.

1st Performance:
Nov 18, 1861

Theatre:

Adelphi

Source:

The Illustrated London News, Nov 30, 1861, p. 562

Review:

The Illustrated London News, Nov 30, 1861, p. 562

THE SLAVE MARKET--SALE OF THE OCTOROON.

We have selected the "sensation scene" from Mr. Boucicault's new drama of "The Octoroon" for an illustration this week. This particular scene recommends itself from its truthfulness. In delineating the dreadful business which it represents, the dramatist has attempted no exaggeration. He has treated it as a familiar horror, one which society has accepted as portion of the regular business of the market and legalised as an institution. However abominable it may be, it is authorised. Those who observe, and those who are actively engaged in the transaction, alike acquiesce in the fact and the principle, as if there were no outrage being done to nature, no sin against humanity committed. Any external demonstration of excitement would be improper. What conflict there is goes on within. That beautiful Octoroon--what feels she? They who would save her from the threatened degradation--what feel they? And in that determined wretch, who exceeds his means in her purchase--O! What a hell there is in his bosom, of premeditated guilt, and even already of an anticipated remorse! The picture is presented on the stage in fine taste.

There can be no doubt that if it had been morally possible for the author to have given a happier ending to his drama it would have been more immediately popular. But we do not think that this circumstance will at all interfere with its run. The audience take all through a strong interest in the fate of the heroine, and this is manifested by the reluctance they feel at the end when the victim finds no refuge but in death.

The Illustrated London News, Nov 30, 1861, p. 561

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eastern michigan university
english department

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Alfred Nelson, Franklin Case, Gilbert Cross, James Ellis, Jane Scott, Joseph Donohue, Peggy Russo, Mary Case, Don Drummond, Theodore Seward, Scott Harrison, Frank McHugh, John Brokaw, Gayle Harris, Alicia Kae Koger, Alfrida Lee, Paul Buczkowski, Ambrose Wilbanks, Jr., Thirza Cady, Meredith Klaus, Joan Reilly, Patricia Tatspaugh, Mauel Norman, Bethann L. Welch,Mary Fettes, Sharon Gleason,Jerry Montague, Melissa Watkins, Mary Beth Kukucka, Peitra Abbulone, Nina Bernier, John Grose,
Dale Detroit, Francine Harris, Keri Krick, Sandy Mathews, Andrea Shaw

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The Adelphi Theatre Project: Graphics, Image for

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Graphics, Image for The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana , Calendar of the Sans Pareil and Adelphi Theatre 1806-1900

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Wild West shows:
Buffalo Bill's Wild West

By Paul Fees, Former Curator
Buffalo Bill Museum

William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody opened Buffalo Bill's Wild West show on May 19, 1883 at Omaha, Nebraska. His partner that first season was a dentist and exhibition shooter, Dr. W.F. Carver. Cody and Carver took the show, subtitled "Rocky Mountain and Prairie Exhibition," across the country to popular acclaim and favorable reviews, launching a genre of outdoor entertainment that thrived for three decades and survived, in fits and starts, for almost three more.

The idea had been around for a long time. The earliest antecedent to Buffalo Bill's Wild West show may actually have been staged in France in the middle of the sixteenth century when fifty Brazilian Indians were brought to Rouen to populate a replica of their village. Elevated walkways enabled royal visitors to watch the Indians play at real life. Exotic elements of Native American life later became staples of European and American circuses.

Horse shows and menageries with exotic animals had been popular in America since the eighteenth century. The "Indian Gallery" of artist George Catlin featured American Indians with native dress and accouterments to complement his paintings. Medicine Shows employed frontiersmen and Indian people to help sell tonics and other "natural" cures.

In 1872, legendary plainsman Wild Bill Hickok joined several cowboys and Indians in a "Grand Buffalo Hunt" staged at Niagara Falls. Buffalo Bill Cody himself had already been in show business for a decade, staging plays known as "border dramas," which actually were small-scale Wild West shows featuring genuine frontier characters, real Indians, fancy shooting, and sometimes horses.

The birth of the Wild West as a successful genre was largely a product of personality, dramatic acumen, and good timing. The golden age of outdoor shows began in the 1880s, and with his theatre experience Buffalo Bill already was skilled in the use of press agentry and poster advertising. His fame and credibility as a westerner lent star appeal and an aura of authenticity. Most important, Cody gave the show a dramatic narrative structure.

Features such as the Pony Express, the wagon train, or the attack on the stagecoach recreated specific and well-known events. Spectacles such as "cowboy fun" or the "tableau" of American Indian life usually served as prelude to a dramatic event, such as a battle scene. Skill acts such as sharp shooting (with pistol and rifle), wing shooting (with shotgun), roping, and riding not only showcased star performers, the show's narration linked those skills to survival in the frontier West. An orator boomed the script to the audience from an elevated platform in the arena. The circus band became the "Cowboy Band" and backed the arena action with appropriate mood-setting music. The same skits and music later were easily adapted to film and television "Westerns."

Buffalo Bill once said that his favorite literary passage was Bishop George Berkeley's "Westward the course of empire takes its way." In New York's Madison Square Garden in 1886, Cody and his partners re-staged Buffalo Bill's Wild West as "The Drama of Civilization." Theater and arena were now merged, and America's westward progress thus became an explicit theme in the show even when it returned to its more familiar Wild West format.

One of the biggest names in American circus, Adam Forepaugh, jumped into the Wild West business in 1887. Forepaugh may have been first to stage a re-enactment of "Custer's Last Fight" as a regular act. The Battle of the Little Big Horn had been featured in many stage melodramas and was an obvious event for the Wild West both for its audience appeal and its narrative power. Buffalo Bill did not re-enact Custer's Last Stand until a year later, apparently in deference to the feelings of General Custer's widow, Elizabeth. She saw it performed in Cody's show in 1888 and wrote him appreciatively, describing her emotional reaction to its "terrible" realism. The Last Stand became a regular feature in Cody's and other shows, sometimes even employing actual battle participants from both sides.

The next twenty years saw the rise and fall of dozens of smaller-scale Wild Wests. Some, such as Buck Taylor's Wild West, were started by Buffalo Bill alumni. Others, such as the Cole Younger and Frank James Wild West attempted to capitalize on famous names or events. "Indian Congresses," usually in conjunction with major fairs or expositions, brought representatives of various tribes together with famous frontier characters. The most successful was Colonel Fred Cummins whose congress at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, in 1901 included both Calamity Jane and the great Sioux leader Red Cloud.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West & Congress of Rough Riders of the World poster, ca. 1895. Gift of the Coe Foundation. 1.69.170

The role of Indian people was both essential and anomalous in the Wild West. At least in the big shows, they generally were treated and paid the same as other performers. They were able to travel with their families, and they earned a living not possible to them on their reservations. They were encouraged by Buffalo Bill and others to retain their language and rituals. They gained access to political and economic leaders, and their causes were sometimes argued in the published show programs. Yet they were stereotyped as mounted, war-bonneted warriors, the last impediment to civilization. Thus they had to re-fight a losing war nightly; and their hollow victory in the Little Big Horn enactments demonstrated over and over to their audiences the justification for American conquest.

Women also played several roles in Buffalo Bill's Wild West. Annie Oakley broke ground when she and her husband and manager, Frank Butler, joined Buffalo Bill early in 1885. Not only could she outshoot most men, she did it while remaining entirely feminine, even girlish. Shooter Lillian Smith toured as a teenager with Buffalo Bill, disappeared for a while from public view, then resurfaced in Mexican Joe's and other Wild Wests as "Princess Wenona, the Indian Girl Shot." Pawnee Bill's wife, May Lillie, was a Smith College graduate from Philadelphia who earned fame as a sharpshooter in her husband's show.

Woman riders at first used sidesaddles, but by the 1890s they were appearing as regular "rancheras," or cowgirls. Lucille Mulhall gained fame in her father's show as a roper and Rough Rider. By the turn of the century, it was not uncommon for women like Tad Lucas to ride bucking broncos in the arena. Women also played traditional dramatic roles as "prairie Madonnas" or as Indian captives. Although there were fewer places for women in the shows, surviving records indicate that Buffalo Bill, at least, paid women equally with the men.

Roles for persons of color changed subtly during the first decade of Buffalo Bill's Wild West. At first they were well-represented among the cowboys. Some attained minor fame; for example, Voter Hall was facetiously billed in 1885 as "a Feejee Indian from Africa." As the popular image of the cowboy crystallized, black cowboys virtually disappeared from the arena, and others with dark skins were assigned to different roles. The famous Esquivel brothers of San Antonio, for instance, were presented as vaqueros. However, contingents representing the all-black 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry regiments appeared with Buffalo Bill's Wild West and other Wild Wests, and the concert bands seem to have remained integrated. The most famous black cowboy, and perhaps the most famous of all Wild West show cowboys, was the 101 Ranch's bulldogger, Bill Pickett.

During the tour in Europe in 1892, Buffalo Bill's partner, Nate Salsbury, created "the Congress of Rough Riders of the World." Mounted military troupes from many nations drilled in the arena alongside the American cowboys and Indians. Public interest in American military adventures abroad led to the addition of Hawaiian cowboys and Cuban, Philippine, and Japanese cavalry units.

The logistics of the show were formidable. The biggest of them all, Buffalo Bill's Wild West, in the late 1890s carried as many as five hundred cast and staff members, including twenty-five cowboys, a dozen cowgirls, and one hundred Indian men, women, and children. They all were fed three hot meals a day, cooked on twenty-foot-long ranges. The show generated its own electricity and staffed its own fire department. Performers lived in wall tents during long stands or slept in railroad sleeping cars when the show moved daily. Business on the back lot was carried on in what one reporter called "a Babel of languages." Expenses were as high as $4,000 per day.

Circus great James A. Bailey, of Barnum & Bailey, joined Cody and Salsbury in 1895 and revolutionized their travel arrangements. The show was loaded onto two trains totaling fifty or more cars. Strings of flat cars could be linked together with ramps for loading wagons from the back forward. Besides performers and staff, the trains transported hundreds of show and draft horses and as many as thirty buffalo. The show carried grandstand seating for twenty thousand spectators along with the acres of canvas necessary to cover them. The arena itself remained open to the elements. Advance staff traveled ahead of the show to procure licenses and arrange for the ten to fifteen acres required for the show lot, preferably close to the railroad; to buy the tons of flour, meat, coffee, and other necessities; and to publicize and advertise.

In 1899, Buffalo Bill's Wild West covered over 11,000 miles in 200 days giving 341 performances in 132 cities and towns across the United States. In most places, there would be a parade and two two-hour performances. Then the whole show would be struck, loaded, and moved overnight to the next town. Europeans (and their armies) were often as fascinated by the ingenuity and efficiency behind the scenes as they were by the show itself. Not many shows could match Buffalo Bill's in scale, but all subscribed to similar regimens.

In the 1890s, Wild Wests began to add sideshows and other circus elements. If the West seemed too familiar, "Far East" acts such as Arabian acrobats or dancing elephants and thrill acts such as bicyclists and high divers might inject sufficient novelty to draw new spectators.

For several reasons, the decade just before America's entry into World War I saw audiences decline. Motion pictures captivated public attention-the West could seem more real on the screen than in the arena. Shooting declined as a spectator sport while the popularity of baseball and football soared. Riding and roping could be better showcased in rodeos, which were considerably less expensive to produce than Wild West shows. The old western stars were fading as well-even Buffalo Bill seemed a relic-and Indian people appeared to be quietly confined to reservations. The "old West" was no longer so exotic nor, at the same time, so relevant to a world of heavy industry and mechanized warfare.

Cody's show went bankrupt in July 1913. In a sign of the times, he immediately obtained backing to make a five-reel film, The Indian Wars. The Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Real Wild West had the bad luck to be in Great Britain in August 1914, losing the show's horses to the war effort. The 101 continued intermittently to tour the States through the 1920s. Western film stars such as Tom Mix started short-lived Wild Wests, and in 1938 Colonel Tim McCoy produced probably the last great traditional Wild West show. It folded after less than a month on the road.

Although occasional revivals and adaptations are staged in the United States and abroad, the era of the Wild West can conveniently be said to have died in 1917 along with its greatest proponent, Buffalo Bill Cody. The most pervasive legacy of the Wild West shows has been the narrative vision of romance and conquest, based on real people and events that they created and disseminated so successfully across boundaries of race, class, and geography.

Bibliography:

Blackstone, Sarah. Buckskins, Bullets, and Business. New York, 1986.

Bruce, Chris, editor. The Myth of the West. Seattle, 1990.

Fox, Charles P. and Tom Parkinson. Billers, Banners and Bombast: The Story of Circus Advertising. Boulder, Colorado, 1985.

Grossman, James R., editor. The Frontier in American Culture. Berkeley, 1994.

Katzive, David, editor. Buffalo Bill and the Wild West. Pittsburgh, 1981.

Russell, Don. The Wild West: A History of the Wild West Shows. Fort Worth, 1970.

Slotkin, Richard. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America. New York, 1992.

Warren, Louis S. Buffalo Bill's America: William Cody and the Wild West Show. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.

Wood-Clark, Sarah. Beautiful Daring Western Girls: Women of the Wild West Shows. Cody, Wyoming, 1983; rpt. 1992.

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William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody opened Buffalo Bill's Wild West in May 1883 at Omaha, Nebraska, launching the wild west shows genre of outdoor entertainment

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Uncle Toms Cabin going from a famous novel to play 

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Uncle Toms Cabin going from a famous novel to play 