Natoma (opera)

Natoma is a 1911 opera with music by Victor Herbert, famous for his operettas, and libretto by Joseph D. Redding. It is a serious full-scale grand opera set in Santa Barbara, California in the "Spanish days" of 1820; the story and music are colored by "Indian" (Native American) and Spanish themes. It premiered in Philadelphia at the Metropolitan Opera House on February 25, 1911 and was later mounted at the New York Metropolitan Opera House on February 28, 1911.

Herbert stated that "I have tried to imitate Indian music. But I have used no special Indian theme. Indian themes are all very short and unharmonized. I have tried to get the effect of Indian music without using the thing itself. It is the same with some of the Spanish music which occurs in the score. There is Spanish coloring, but I have taken no special Spanish themes to start with."

Natoma was not quite the first American opera to be performed at the Metropolitan Opera—that honor belonged to The Pipe of Desire by composer Frederick Shepherd Converse and librettist George Edward Barton, which premiered March 18, 1910—and in calling it an "American" opera, some newspapers quibbled about Herbert's Irish origin. Nevertheless, great anticipation preceded the premiere of this "American" opera with an English-language libretto, which featured first-rank stars Mary Garden and John McCormack and an unstinted production. (The production, in both Philadelphia and New York, was mounted by the Chicago Grand Opera Company, which did not present it in Chicago because the opera house there was fully booked for the season). Prior to the premiere the Times carried numerous articles, one being a full-page musical analysis quoting portions of the score in musical notation and analyzing their function within the structure of the opera.

The opera was, according to Meredith Willson, "probably the biggest flop of all time," although the Chicago production company retained it in its repertoire for three seasons. The Times reported that the audience at the Philadelphia premiere evidenced "positive excitement" after the first act, but that "After the second act, however, which is evidently intended to be the principal feature of the opera, in which the effects are piled one upon another, the audience was curiously apathetic."

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