McCaull Comic Opera Company

McCaull Comic Opera Company, sometimes called the McCaull Opera Comique Company, was founded by Colonel John A. McCaull in 1880. The company produced operetta, comic opera and musical theatre in New York City and on tour in the eastern and midwestern U.S. and Canada until McCaull's death in 1894. It nurtured such stars, in their early careers, as Lillian Russell and DeWolf Hopper.

McCaull (1846–1894) was born in Scotland. He served as a colonel in the Confederate Army and later became a lawyer in Baltimore. He was representing John T. Ford, lessee of the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York, when Gilbert and Sullivan presented H.M.S. Pinafore in December 1879 and premiered The Pirates of Penzance at the end of that month. McCaull was attracted to theatrical production and became involved as an investor with these productions. He then quit his law practice to produce light opera. For the Christmas season in 1880, he staged Olivette at the Bijou Theatre in New York. The strong success of this piece encouraged him to continue to present comic opera.

McCaull explained the goals of his opera company to The New York Times: "The public demands good voices. .... Our aim is to build up this thing until we get something like the Opéra comique in Paris". McCaull invested $10,000 in Rudolph Aronson's newly rebuilt Casino Theatre in New York in 1882. He opened the theatre the same year with the American premiere of the Strauss operetta The Queen's Lace Handkerchief. Also there, the company produced Prince Methusalem (1883), Der Bettelstudent (1883–84), Falka (1884), Nell Gwynne (with a new libretto),Die Fledermaus (1885), Apajune, the Water Nymph (1885) and The Black Hussar (1885). The success of The Black Hussar led to an extended run. After this, McCaull quarrelled with the Aronsons and was forced out of the theatre, so the company became exclusively a touring company. The company returned to Broadway, however, for summer seasons at Wallack's Theatre and for brief productions at other theaters, including Rudolph Dellinger's Lorraine and De Koven's The Begum, both in 1887.

...
Wikipedia