ABSTRACT
THE CREATION of American operetta, like the Austrian and British varieties, was provoked by the overwhelming reception given to foreign works. In the eighteenth century, British ballad operas were popular in the colonies and led to American imitations, along with Shakespeare, farces, and other English fare. By the middle of the nineteenth century, New York was the principal theatrical city, with its cosmopolitan audience supporting Italian opera, serious drama, and, from 1841, the native minstrel show, along with lower-class diversions centered around the Bowery. Extravaganzas of the British type and burlesques, travesties, and pantomimes flourished. The music hallusually a disreputable saloon with “waiter-girls” dispensing more than drink-was given a certain respectability by the impresario Tony Pastor, who opened his Music Hall in 1864.
