The American Opera Company was the name of four different opera companies active in the United States. The first company was a short-lived opera company founded in New York City in February, 1886 that lasted only one season. The second company grew out of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and was active from the mid-1920s up until 1930 when it went bankrupt not too long after the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The third opera company was a short lived company located in Trenton, New Jersey that was active in 1937. The fourth and last opera company was actively performing in Philadelphia from 1946 through 1950. Jeannette Thurber's American Opera Company The first American Opera Company was founded by patron of the arts Jeannette Meyers Thurber, who also established the National Conservatory of Music of America. It was incorporated in 1878 with an ambitious prospectus, which anticipated productions featuring "the largest regularly trained chorus ever employed in grand opera in America", "the largest ballet corps ever presented in grand opera in America", "four thousand new and correct costumes for which no expense has been spared in fabric or manufacture", and scenery "painted by the most eminent scenic artists in America". Although based in New York City, it was intended as a national company that toured throughout the United States, with the goal of increasing American appreciation for opera by offering productions in English, by American performers, at affordable ticket prices. A succinct statement of Thurber's vision for the company appeared in the New York Times in August 1886, which reported that in her view "the true conception of a national opera is opera sung in a nation's language and, as far as practicable, the work of a nation's composers". The new company, which had Andrew Carnegie as its president and other New York millionaires among its board of directors, was under the musical direction of Theodore Thomas, with Gustav Hinrichs and Arthur Mees as assistant conductors, and Charles Locke as business manager. Its first season opened on January 6, 1886, with the first American performance of The Taming of the Shrew by Hermann Goetz, and 13 other productions followed, for a total of 126 individual performances. The repertoire included Verdi's Aida, Wagner's Lohengrin and The Flying Dutchman, and Gounod's Faust, all sung in English translation. Performances in New York took place in the Academy of Music