Merola's advertisement in the Pacific Coast Musical Review, April 1, 1922
Once he received financial backing and the space to present outdoor opera in 1922, Gaetano Merola had to marshal the a variety of forces to stage his festival. Opera is far more than the great artists singing and acting on the stage -- it requires an army of supporting participants. Transporting the forces necessary for this undertaking required a charter train to carry 500 people including a chorus consisted of 150 members, the orchestra numbering 110 musicians. There was an additional ballet corps of 50 dancers. These numbers do not account for the necessary stage hands and ticket takers. Additional trains were also added to bring the audience to Palo Alto from San Francisco and back again.
Merola was assisted by the Baker & Taylor engineering firm who had helped construct Stanford Stadium. Contractors from the University built the stage, 80 feet wide, 40 feet deep and elevated four feet off of the ground that gave every seat a clear view of the performance. Experts also worked out acoustical issues of performing outdoors constructing a sounding board at the back of the stage to assist the voices and instruments in projecting toward the audience. Ramps were placed at the rear to bring horses on stage during some scenes in Carmen.
Ray Coyle was one of the earliest of the first participants in Merola's project. Well known locally as a muralist, illustrator and interior decorator, he also had experience created scenery for the Bohemian Club's "Lo-Jinks" performed in their redwood grove. Marjory Fisher noted "The scenery in all of the productions was of necessity simple but highly artistic and adequate ... lighting, setting and orchestral effects helped to make the performance conspicuously outstanding."
Illustration of the open-air setting for Merola's 1922 performance of Pagliacci (source: Musical America June 17, 1922)
Jeanne Lane, writing for the Chicago-based Musical Leader, gives a vivid description of the scene:
The night panorama of opera in the stadium is pure magic. The stage built at one end of the great bowl is more than 80 feet in width. The drapery of midnight blue which masks the outer circle melted into the blue of the night where the moon and the stars completed the picture. The stage sets were built especially for this outdoor need and the furniture as well. There has been no makeshift. By a clever arrangement of lights the audience was illuminated and shut out while changes of the sets were being made.
Merola boasted of "the largest picked chorus of local singers ever assembled on the Pacific coast." He recruited the 75 member Stanford University Chorus, the A Capella Choir of the College of the Pacific (then located in San Jose) and a third chorus that he trained in San Francisco. The chorus of 150 voices rehearsed at Frank Carroll Giffen's house (also called the Humphrey-Giffen house) at the corner of Chestnut and Hyde.
image source: San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection
Arthur Bloomfield tells of a gripman hearing these rehearsals from the passing Hyde Street cable car line calling out the Chestnut Street stop as the "Rue de l'Opera." An editorial in the Chronicle noted with civic pride the appreciation of the opera stars who marveled at the assembled chorus.
"Where could you find such a chorus?" asked [Giovanni] Martinelli, amazed.
"Even the Metropolitan cannot excel in this," exclaimed [Vicente] Ballester.
Walter Oesterreicher, the orchestral manager of the San Francisco Symphony, assembled an instrumental ensemble of 100 musicians. Armando Agnini of the Metropolitan Opera, who would collaborate with Merola for many years, directed stage action. Luigi Raybaut was also a stage manager. The ballet was directed and choreographed by Natale Carossio.
The Chronicle's music critic, Ray Brown, summed up the effect of the first evening:
The setting in the great bowl of the stadium was one of beauty, under the blue-black canopy of night. The sky was cloudless, save for a few filmy veils floating slowly beneath a half-moon in the zenith. A silvery wave of fog reared its crest on the summit of the far western hills and stayed its motion there. The winds were still, and there was no intrusion of the out world upon the fairy land of make-believe, except an interrupting whistle or two from a passing locomotive.Gaetano Merola conducted with admirable authority and control of the large orchestra and the choral cohort. When he appeared on the stage at the close of the opera, the embrace that he exchanged with Martinelli was a symbol of congratulation to which the audience shouted approval.
source: San Francisco Examiner June 15, 1922
Bibliography:
Brown, Ray C.B., "600 Witness Opera In Open At Stanford," San Francisco Chronicle June 4, 1922
Bloomfield, Arthur, The San Francisco Opera, 1922-1978 (Comstock Editions, 1978).
Brown, Ray C.B., "600 Witness Opera In Opera At Stanford," San Francisco Chronicle June 4, 1922
Fisher, Marjory M., "Open-Air Opera A Far West Magnet," Musical America June 24, 1922.
"The Golden Gate of Music: Our San Francisco Chorus Amazes the Great Stars of the Opera World," San Francisco Chronicle June 9, 1922.
"Great Chorus To Sing in Stanford Event," San Francisco Chronicle May 13, 1922.
Hughes, Edan Milton, Artists in California, 1786-1940, 3rd ed. (Crocker Art Museum, 2002).
Lane, Jeanne, "San Francisco's Open Air Opera A Triumph," The Musical Leader June 15, 1922.
"Merola To Conduct Open Air Opera," Pacific Coast Musical Review April 15, 1922.
"Open-Air Opera Fete Arousing Interest," Pacific Coast Musical Review May 29, 1922.
"Open-Air Opera Performances Planned for Stanford University," Musical America May 13, 1922.
"Opera Master Tests Stadium for Accoustics [sic]," San Francisco Chronicle April 23, 1922
"'Pagliacci' Begins Open-Air Opera Series at Stanford University," Musical America June 17, 1922.
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