From January 4th to April 17th the Academy of Music was occupied by the American Opera Company, the artistic director of which was Theodore Thomas, who had long stood at the head of orchestral music in America. As I have already intimated, rightly managed this institution might have become of the same significance to the future of opera in the United States as the German company, which had just established a domicile at the Metropolitan Opera House. Indeed, it might have become of greater significance, for the best friends of the German enterprise looked upon it as merely a necessary intermediary between the Italian exotic and a national form of art, with use of the vernacular, which every patriotic lover of music hoped to see installed some day in the foremost operatic establishment in the land. Unfortunately, its claims to excellence were put forward with impudent exaggeration, and there was no substantial or moral health in its business administration. It could not expect to cope with foreign organizations or local aggregations of foreign artists in respect of its principal artists, but it could, and did, in respect of scenic investiture, and in its choral and instrumental ensemble. Unhappily, even in these elements it was unwisely directed, though with a daring and a degree of confidence in popular support which may be said to have given it a characteristically American trait. In three respects the season was unique in the American history of English opera (or opera in English, as it would better he called, since there was not an English opera in its repertory), viz.: in the brilliancy of the orchestra, the excellence of the chorus (numerous and fresh of voice), and the sumptuousness of the stage attire.
There were sixty-six performances in the season of light operas, and one ballet, the latter Delibes's "Sylvia." The operas were Goetz's "Taming of the Shrew" (five times), Gluck's "Orpheus" (thirteen times), Wagner's "Lohengrin" (ten times), Mozart's "Magic Flute" (six times), Nicolai's "Merry Wives of Windsor" (nine times), Delibes's "Lakmé" (eleven times), Wagner's "Flying Dutchman" (seven times), and Massé's "Marriage of Jeannette" (in conjunction with the ballet, five times). "The Taming of the Shrew" received its first performance in America on January 4, 1886; "Lakmé" on March 1st; "The Marriage of Jeannette," on March 24th, and "Lohengrin" (in English), on January 20th.