IS BANGOR A MUSICAL CITY? asked a headline in the Bangor Daily News on March 14, 1908. “Everyone Thinks So, But Grand Opera Season Will Be the True Test.” The Boston Stock Grand Opera Company was coming to the Bangor Opera House for an entire week beginning Monday, March 30. As if that was not quite enough, the world-famous opera singer Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink was planning a separate visit to sing at Bangor City Hall’s auditorium on Thursday of that same week.

Would anybody but a few opera devotees attend this massive outpouring of high culture, which was to include a different opera – “Faust,” “Carmen,” “Rigoletto” and much more – every night? They must! “This is the opportunity of years for Bangor to ‘make good,’ and to prove in reality what has long been held in theory, that this is a center of true musical culture,” gushed the newspaper.

The Queen City was no stranger to opera. Rich Bangoreans had built their own opera temple, the Bangor Auditorium, at the corner of Main and Buck streets. This drafty, wooden colossus (not to be confused with the current auditorium) was the scene of the Maine Music Festival each fall. Prominent opera stars such as Madame Nordica came to Bangor (and Portland) under the direction of impresario William H. Chapman to sing with Maine choral groups. Chapman was also the man responsible that spring of 1908 for setting up Schumann-Heink’s tour to Bangor and other Maine cities.

The Boston Grand Opera Company was coming separately as an experiment. Could it make money playing in Maine’s small cities? A recent visit to Portland had been disappointing. “Portland is not a musical city!” director J.K. Murray fumed. “Is it possible that Bangor is to beat out the metropolis of the state?”

What a marvelous opportunity! “It would indeed be a large-sized feather in Bangor’s musical cap should she ‘beat out her sister city’ – as all true music lovers are certain that she will,” crowed the Bangor Daily News.

The hard sell began almost immediately. M.H. Andrews, the music store owner, started running large advertisements at the top of Page 1 in the Bangor Daily Commercial. “HEAR GRAND OPERA IN YOUR OWN HOME!” Buy a Victor Talking Machine. “Why not become familiar with the music this week, so you’ll enjoy the opera house performance all the more next week,” said the ads.

Meanwhile, puff pieces began to appear about the Boston Opera Company and about Schumann-Heink in the same newspaper columns that described the latest celluloid masterpieces at the Nickel and the Gem and the singalongs that accompanied them led by local crooners.

When tickets went on sale at 9 a.m. March 26 at the Opera House, people had been standing in line for two hours. It was nearly noon before newcomers could get to the box office. Based on this display, a theater official declared Bangor to be far ahead of Portland in its appreciation of music.

Meanwhile, Schumann-Heink was mustering support as well. When tickets for her show went on sale March 30, the line of ticket buyers extended the length of City Hall before the box office opened. “Bangor is a Schumann-Heink city, sure enough!” declared the Bangor Daily News the next day. But that same day, the famous opera singer canceled all her concerts in Maine until the middle of April. She had a bad cold.

The opening night performance of “Faust” by the Boston English Grand Opera Company (its name had changed in the newspapers) was reported with enthusiasm. The local critics, however, made sure they sounded tolerant, but not too enthusiastic, like a bunch of rubes who had never spent a night at the opera. “This company makes no pretense to giving opera on a metropolitan scale. Such pretense, of course, would be absurd,” sniffed the Daily News the next morning.

The most interesting story, however, was about the “Brilliant Audience.” Bangor theatergoers were on review along with Boston opera singers. “There was no sparkling ‘horseshoe’ with priceless jewels and gowns. But the best of Bangor was there – well-dressed – smiling and well-bred,” commented the audience reviewer for the BDN. The audience cheered just the right way too – not too much and not too little. It was “generous and eager to be pleased. … It apparently desired to do away for once with the reputation that Bangor people are so many icicles.”

As the week progressed the critics heaped on praise. The audiences were large. But what everyone was waiting for was the judgment of J.K. Murray. Would he excoriate the Queen City as he had Portland or declare it “a musical city”?

Murray stepped out in front of the curtain on the last night during the intermission between “H.M.S. Pinafore” and “Cavalleria Rusticana.” The news was good as reported in both of the city’s newspapers: “This has been the only Maine city … where we have been given any encouragement. … The attention we have received shows that Bangor is a musical city and that your people understand music is shown by the manner in which they have applauded at the proper times.”

Meanwhile, Schumann-Heink’s long-awaited appearance met with further delay. After arriving in Bangor for her concert, scheduled for the evening of April 13, she was struck with another sudden cold. Dr. B.L. Bryant, who examined the prima donna at the Bangor House, declared in a written statement published in the Commercial that afternoon that “it would be absolutely impossible for her to sing tonight.” Chapman expressed his mortification. He did not give up, however, and Schumann-Heink finally performed June 4.

Meanwhile, Bangor’s newspapers reported that the Queen City was to be treated to yet another world-class opera star, Ellen Beach Yaw, a soprano of extraordinary range known as the California Nightingale, or Lark Ellen for short, at the 12th Maine Festival that fall. Bangor could retain its title as a musical city at least until then.

wreilly@bangordailynews.net