Chicago Opera Association

The Chicago Opera Association was a company that produced seven seasons of grand opera in Chicago’s Auditorium Theater from 1915 to 1921. The founding artistic director and principal conductor was Cleofonte Campanini, while the general manager and chief underwriter was Harold F. McCormick. When Campanini died in December 1919 he was replaced by the composer Gino Marinuzzi, who staged his own "Jacquerie" as the opening production of the 1920/21 season.

In January 1921, operatic diva Mary Garden was appointed music director (or “Directa” as she styled it) and the recently divorced McCormick promised to pay that year's difference exceeding $100,000, the previous high being $300,000. He planned on this being his last season, and he called in Mary Garden to finish the company with style. The subsequent blow-out season was finished with the hugely expensive world premiere of Sergei Prokofiev's “A Love for Three Oranges,” which had been commissioned by the Opera Association. This, and other extravagances on Mary Garden’s part, ended the season with a deficit of $1,100,000, most of which was paid for by the McCormick fund. Mary Garden as “Directa” for one season cost $750,000 more than any single season of opera in Chicago at that time. Coming as it did during a business recession, these deficits bankrupted the company.

The bankrupt Chicago Opera Association was soon succeeded by a successor company, the Chicago Civic Opera, under the direction of utilities magnate Samuel Insull. Sixteen of the eighteen directors were carried over from the old company.

Notable singers

Georges Baklanoff Charles Dalmorès Hector Dufranne

Anna Fitziu Mary Garden Gustave Huberdeau

Frances Ingram Nina Koshetz Edith Mason

Mary McCormic Carmen Melis Lucien Muratore

Giovanni Polese Emilio Venturini Alice Verlet

Sources

• Davis, Ronald L., Opera in Chicago, Appleton, New York City, 1966.
• Marsh, Robert C. and Norman Pellegrini, 150 Years of Opera in Chicago, Northern Illinois University Press, Chicago 2006.