The American Opera Company was a short-lived opera company founded in New York City in February, 1886.^[1] It was the brain-child of Jeannette Meyers Thurber who had just founded the National Conservatory of Music of America a few months earlier. The American Opera Company was under the musical direction of Theodore Thomas. It rented the premises of the Academy of Music in New York City for local performances during 1886. It also toured, playing in April, May and June 1886 in, among other cities, Boston, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and St. Louis. The repertoire included Verdi's Aida, Wagner's Lohengrin, and Gounod's Faust. In August, the company announced an ambitious plan to travel to Paris, a trip that never came about.^[2]

A succinct statement of Thurber's vision for the American Opera Company appeared in August, 1886, when she was cited as "... [recognizing] the fact that 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, [and that she hoped]…in time to develop and patronize American composers."^[3]

Financial difficulties led to a reorganization and name change to the "National Opera Company" in December 1887^[4] and, ultimately, bankruptcy in March, 1887.^[5]

In the mid-1920s, a professional touring opera company emerged from the innovative productions of Vladimir Rosing and Rouben Mamoulian at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. Its mission was to perform operas in English to popular audiences nationwide. First known as the Rochester American Opera Company the group made its New York City debut in April 1927 at the Guild Theatre. It won the support of many wealthy and influential backers.^[6] By the time it performed for President Coolidge and 150 members of Congress at Washington D.C.'s Polis Theater in December 1927, the company was known as the American Opera Company.

During January and February 1928 the American Opera Company then brought seven weeks of opera to Broadway at New York's Gallo Theater, including a notable adaptation of Faust ^[7]. National tours followed for the next two years, but the Crash of 1929 caused bookings for the 1930 season to dematerialize. The group earned an official endorsement from President Herbert Hoover, calling for it to become "a permanent national institution", ^[8] but it was not enough as the country sank into the Great Depression. Its last performances in New York were of Madame Butterfly and Yolanda of Cyprus at the Casino Theatre on Broadway in January 1930.^[9]

The name was also used for an opera company in Philadelphia that performed works between 1937 and 1950.

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