Social Customs and Daily Life Research Guide

Widespread professional operatic activity in the heartland of America in the late nineteenth century formed the hub of social and cultural life in many communities. In the spring of 1869, Kansas City hosted its first professional opera performance when the Brignoli Italian Opera Company presented Gaetano Donizetti's Don Pasquale, in Italian. A new chapter in the town's cultural history began in 1870, with the opening of the Coates Opera House, a fully equipped theater with ample seating capacity. Located at what became the intersection of Tenth Street and Broadway, the opera house was situated across the street from the city's finest hotel, also erected by Coates, on the edge of town. The new place of amusement ensured its popularity by catering to female patrons. Aware that women had rarely attended theatrical events in Kansas City prior to 1870, the management of the Coates encouraged female attendance by introducing matinees for women and children. Soon the Coates Opera House became a gathering place for Kansas City society and remained the community's premier theater until the end of the century.

As a thriving commercial center, St. Louis attracted nearly all the major organizations and prominent singers who toured across America. By 1886, grand opera was firmly established as a staple in the city's cultural diet, there having been visits by one or more professional troupes in every year since the close of the Civil War. The operatic engagements of 1886 capped an unbroken succession of annual visits to St. Louis by professional companies stretching back fully twenty years. These visits continued with regularity for the remainder of the century. St. Louis patrons showed great enthusiasm for opera, as evidenced by the amount of attention paid to the art by the press and public, not to mention the generous number of engagements accorded the city by the troupes themselves.