Gaetano Merola (4 January 1881 – 30 August 1953) was an Italian
conductor,
pianist
A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...
and founder of the
San Francisco Opera.
Biography
Merola was born in
Naples
Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...
, the son of a Neapolitan court violinist and studied piano and conducting at the
Naples conservatory. He emigrated to the United States in 1899 and served as an assistant conductor at the
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an American opera company based in New York City, currently resident at the Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center), Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Referred ...
,
Henry Wilson Savage's opera company in Boston, and
Fortune Gallo's traveling
San Carlo Opera Company.
Oscar Hammerstein I hired Merola as choral conductor of his
Manhattan Opera Company where Merola remained until the company folded in 1910. He then served as conductor in Hammerstein's
London Opera House before returning to New York as an operetta conductor. Merola conducted the premieres of several shows, including
Victor Herbert's ''
Naughty Marietta'',
Rudolf Friml's ''
The Firefly'' and
Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg (July 29, 1887 – November 9, 1951) was a Hungarian-born American composer. He is best known for his Musical theatre, musicals and operettas, particularly ''The Student Prince'' (1924), ''The Desert Song'' (1926) and ''The New Moo ...
's ''Maytime''.
San Francisco years
It was while touring with the San Carlo Opera that Merola began making annual visits to San Francisco. He first heard
Luisa Tetrazzini, a recent arrival to America, at the city's Tivoli Opera House in 1906 and recommended her to
Hammerstein. San Francisco had had a long history of opera houses dating back to the
Gold Rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, ...
. Recognizing the city's potential as a major opera center, by 1921 Merola decided to stay in the Bay Area and launched his first Bay Area opera season in 1922 with a summer season of ''
Carmen
''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the O ...
'', ''
Pagliacci
''Pagliacci'' (; literal translation, 'Clowns') is an Italian opera in a prologue and two acts, with music and libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo. The opera tells the tale of Canio, actor and leader of a commedia dell'arte theatrical company, who mu ...
'' and
''Faust'' at the
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
football stadium where over 30,000 attended. Though the Stanford season resulted in a deficit, he pressed on and founded the San Francisco Opera Association the following year, 1923, adapting the Civic Auditorium to his purposes. He recruited some 2,000 individuals and local businesses to become Founders of his opera company. By 1927, he presented the local premieres of ''
Tristan und Isolde
''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner set to a German libretto by the composer, loosely based on the medieval 12th-century romance ''Tristan and Iseult'' by Gottfried von Stras ...
'' and the then-new ''
Turandot'', and in the following years, he introduced ''
Falstaff'', ''
La Fanciulla del West'' and ''
Die Meistersinger''.
War Memorial Opera House
For years, the local citizenry had spoken of building a new opera house. The aftermath of World War I had also kindled a desire to honor the city's war heroes with a veteran's building or art museum. Eventually, those ideas coalesced into a joint project that was to consist of two Palladian-style edifices. One building would house an art museum with veterans rooms while the other would be home to Merola's
San Francisco Opera. Two lots across from City Hall were appropriated for the construction, and a bond issue was approved by the voters in 1927. By October 1931, when the twin cornerstones were laid, the stock market crash and ensuing Depression had significantly reduced the construction costs, and the two buildings were completed within the year for US$5.5 million.
The
War Memorial Opera House opened on October 15, 1932 with an inaugural production of ''
Tosca
''Tosca'' is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1 ...
'' starring
Claudia Muzio and
Dino Borgioli (a primitive recording of Act 1 has survived, and is included in the
Romophone Muzio series), followed a few days later by a charming 27-year-old
Lily Pons in ''
Lucia di Lammermoor''. With a new house, Merola's company grew rapidly in its first decade, producing its first
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...
''
Ring Cycle'' in 1935 starring
Kirsten Flagstad (in her first complete ''Ring'' anywhere) and
Lauritz Melchior, and introducing conductors
Fritz Reiner in 1936 and
Erich Leinsdorf in 1938.
Part of Merola's southern strategy was to augment his company's home season with run-out performances at the
Shrine Auditorium
The Shrine Auditorium is a landmark large-event venue in Los Angeles, California. It is also the headquarters of the Al Malaikah Temple, a division of the Shriners. It was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (No. 139) in 1975, an ...
in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
. He had been a partner in the formation of Los Angeles Grand Opera, which had a successful run from 1924 to 1931. With the opening of the War Memorial in October 1932, Merola entered into a business agreement with the Los Angeles arts impresario L.E. Behymer to present stars of the
San Francisco Opera in an abbreviated season of locally produced operas. So it was that L.A. audiences heard Muzio and Borgioli in ''
La traviata'' and ''
Il trovatore'' and Pons in
''Lucia'' and ''
Rigoletto
''Rigoletto'' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play '' Le roi s'amuse'' by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had c ...
'' just days before their War Memorial debuts. Other notable productions included ''
The Bartered Bride'' with
Elisabeth Rethberg and an immense ''
Le Coq d'Or'' in 1934. In 1937, Merola shed all pretense of a Los Angeles company and formally established a long-running series of annual visits by the
San Francisco Opera Association to the
Shrine Auditorium
The Shrine Auditorium is a landmark large-event venue in Los Angeles, California. It is also the headquarters of the Al Malaikah Temple, a division of the Shriners. It was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (No. 139) in 1975, an ...
. That first season included Lauritz Melchior and Kirsten Flagstad in ''
Tristan und Isolde
''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner set to a German libretto by the composer, loosely based on the medieval 12th-century romance ''Tristan and Iseult'' by Gottfried von Stras ...
'' conducted by
Fritz Reiner, Melchior in ''
Lohengrin'', Pons and
Ezio Pinza in ''
Lakmé'', Gina Cigna and Giovanni Martinelli in ''
Aida'' and
Maria Jeritza in ''
Tosca
''Tosca'' is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1 ...
''. The result was an unbroken string of yearly Los Angeles performances through 1965.
Later years
In 1943, Merola brought
Kurt Herbert Adler to San Francisco to serve initially as chorus master; in time, he would take on additional duties as conductor, choral director and chief deputy. Adler had been Toscanini's assistant at Salzburg in 1936 and had arrived in the United States in 1938. Merola also continued to attract important new singers - often before they'd performed in other major American opera houses. Notable singers he introduced after the Second World War included
Tito Gobbi,
Ferruccio Tagliavini,
Elena Nikolaidi,
Renata Tebaldi and
Mario del Monaco. In addition, he spotted and utilized West Coast talents, including lyric soprano
Dorothy Warenskjold, who he discovered while conducting a Standard Hour radio broadcast at the
California State Fair in Sacramento.
As his health and energy declined over the next decade, Merola turned over more and more of his duties to Adler, though he remained at the helm of the company until his death in 1953 - an impressive stewardship of 30 years.
He died while conducting an excerpt from Puccini's ''Madama Butterfly'' during a concert at
Sigmund Stern Grove, an outdoor amphitheatre in western San Francisco where free summer concerts have been given since 1938.
Merola Opera Program
Upon succeeding Merola as general director, Kurt Herbert Adler established the San Francisco Opera's training program for gifted singers and directors during the 1954–55 season. In 1957, the program was officially named the Merola Opera Program in honor of the company's founder and longtime general director, Gaetano Merola. The Merola Opera Program provides intensive training, coaching and master classes for eleven weeks every summer with established professionals in the various operatic fields, and its many graduates have gone on to important careers in opera.
References
*
External links
SF Opera HistoryMerola Opera Program Alumni
{{DEFAULTSORT:Merola, Gaetano
1881 births
1953 deaths
Italian male conductors (music)
Italian opera managers
Musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area
20th-century Italian conductors (music)
20th-century Italian male musicians
Musicians from Naples