“The Colored American Opera Company was born at St. Augustine’s Catholic Church – the first all-black church in the nation’s capitol – where an Italian priest invited a white Spanish-American veteran of the U.S. Marine Band … to teach a French style of Opéra Bouffe to an African-American choir. In doing so, in 1873, just a decade after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, together, they created the first American opera company – black or white – in the nation.” (podcast)