The War of the Operas: new money vs old in The Gilded Age

In season one of The Gilded Age, the Russells struggled for acceptance in this world of rigid social hierarchy, connections, and ritual – as was the case in reality for many nouveau riche families.

Many of the Knickerbockers of New York – descendants of the Anglo-Dutch families who had settled in what was then New Amsterdam in the 17th and 18th centuries – were determined that these interlopers were not to make it into 'real society'.

Newly-minted families included the Vanderbilts, the Carnegies and the Rockefellers, many of them businessmen who were labelled ‘robber barons’ – shorthand for the handful of men who dominated industry in late 19th century America.

“They forged their path in the business world at a time when new technologies – steel, oil refining, railroads and steam-powered factory technology – were remaking the material basis of the western world,” writes Adam IP Smith. “They were the exploiters, not the inventors: men who took small-scale operations and scaled them up, and then up again.”

Though the families of these tycoons bought up or built grand houses on New York’s prestigious Fifth Avenue, summered and played lawn tennis in the fashionable coastal town of Newport, and employed etiquette guides to help them navigate the vagaries of polite society, they struggled to break into the city’s most elite circles.

What was the War of the Operas?

In 1882–83, this war between ‘old money’ and the upstart ‘new’ coalesced over two New York opera houses.

The Academy of Music, established in 1854, was a New York City Opera House based on the East side of Manhattan.

The dedicated opera venue held seating for 4,000 people, and the boxes in the opera house were owned by the oldest and most prominent families in the city. Elite families flocked to the opera, eager to show off their refined tastes for the European artistic export, and in the latter half of the 19th century, the performances became a lynchpin of the social season.

As New York society expanded, the new-moneyed families were eager to attend this operatic ritual. But the Academy’s 18 prestigious boxes were already owned by the ‘old people’, and social arbiters like Mrs Caroline Astor and Ward McAllister determined who was ‘in’ – and who was ‘out’.

Many, including Alva Vanderbilt, the wife of William Kissam Vanderbilt (and widely regarded as Fellowes’ inspiration for Bertha Russell in The Gilded Age), felt snubbed by the Academy.

In this new age, there was clearly an opportunity for a changing of the guard.

The Metropolitan Opera

The new, rival opera house was sponsored by a group of industrialists who had received snubs from the Academy. Supporters included three generations of Vanderbilts – a family which had made a fortune in its shipping and railroad empire – the investment banker JP Morgan, and James Alfred Roosevelt (uncle to Theodore, who in 1901 would become the 26th president of the United States).

These businessmen were bolstered by other patrons of the Academy who had become dissatisfied with the exclusive opera house’s East Side location – by 1882, many unionists and anarchists socialised and organised in the area.

Seventy shareholders provided the $1.7m required to buy the land and build the opera house, and once built it occupied the entire western side of the block between West 39th Street and West 40th Street. Positioned from the off as a clear rival to the fusty academy, the Met was also much closer to the fashionable residences of Fifth Avenue.

The design by JC Cady was derided by some, and it quickly gained a nickname – “The Yellow Brick Brewery” – for its industrial looking exterior. But most importantly, it would offer 122 opera boxes.

When August Belmont, president of the Academy, learned of the project, he reportedly offered to supplement the Academy's 18 boxes with 26 more. But the placement offered to the additional boxes would have remained below the original 18 – another visible snub in the eyes of many who had previously wished to be admitted to the exclusive academy.

Industrialists continued to raise support by encouraging members of society to take a box at the new theatre. Meanwhile, ‘old’ families insisted they would never patronise a new opera house over the Academy of Music.

The battle came to a head when the new Met named its opening night as 22 October 1883. Society waited to see who would come out on top.

What was the first performance at the Met?

The first performance at the Metropolitan Opera in 1883 was French composer Charles Gounod’s 1859 Faust, starring premier Swedish soprano Christine Nilsson. It was a coup for the new theatre to secure such a performer in Nilsson, and word had quickly spread.

On opening night, in a performance that lasted five hours, Nilsson’s rendition of ‘The Jewel Song’ elicited the first ovation of the theatre, and when the curtain fell, the night was deemed a great success by the theatre’s owners.

According to New York City newspaper The Sun: “The night on which the Metropolitan Opera House threw open its doors to the world is one that none who were present will be likely ever to forget.”

The reporter added that “It will be all the more a matter of pride to many to be able to look back over the vista of time and to say, ‘I was present when the first note of music was heard in public at the opera house.’”

The architecture was also received with some warmth; one critic for the New York Tribune reported that the theatre had “a lightness and airiness about it that seems to lift one’s spirit and make one forget anything like business or care”, adding that the arena was “calculated to show off beautiful dresses and fair faces to advantage”.

The new, open theatre allowed opera attendees to showcase their opulent jewels and lavish clothes, on show to the entire audience. Because of this view, the balconies soon earned a nickname: the ‘golden horseshoe’.

However, the New York Times found the new theatre disappointing, noting that “in the upper rows of the boxes and in the balcony only the high voices were distinctly heard.”

The Met eventually succeeded in converting some fans in the ‘old money’ families: Mrs Caroline Astor would later decree it obligatory to attend the Met on Monday nights – but never before 9pm.

What happened to the Academy of Music?

Following the successful opening seasons of the Met, and the transference of much of New York society to the raft of available boxes, the Academy of Music began to fail.

Its opera season was cancelled in 1886 and never reinstated. In 1888 it began to offer vaudeville, a far cry from its lofty and exclusive position in the social battle between Manhattan’s old guard and nouveau riche.

What happened to the Metropolitan Opera House?

In August 1892, a fire destroyed much of the interior of the opera house, forcing it to close until November of the following year.

It was rebuilt the following year and its predecessor became known as the ‘Old Met’. The new theatre reopened in 1893, functioning as an opera house for the next 73 years.

For anyone searching for the Met today, it no longer exists; it was razed to the ground in 1967 and was replaced by an office block.

Series 2 of The Gilded Age is streaming on HBO in the US from 29 October 2023, and in the UK will be broadcast on Sky Atlantic and available to stream on NOW