Background
John Davis was born in 1780. Despite his English name, he was a French refugee from Santo Domingo.
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John Davis
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He is said to have come to New Orleans in 1811, though it is possible that he may have appeared some years before, with that “company . .. of half a dozen actors and actresses, former" attached to the theatre of Cape Français in the isle of San Domingo, ” mentioned by Berquin-Duvallon.
When it was burned to the ground four years later, he rebuilt it with, for that day, unexampled magnificence; so that when it entered upon its first season (November 20, 1819), it deserved its reputation of being “the grandest” opera-house then existing on the continent.
Under Davis’s management (he was its owner as well as manager) the Théâtre d’Orléans, provided with all the scenic and mechanical appliances then known to the best European houses, was the musical focus of cultured Creole society, and its winter seasons were a magnet for the wealthy planters along the Mississippi, who came to town with their wives and families to attend the opera.
To the theatre proper its owner later added a great separate dancing hall, where the famous New Orleans Quadroon Balls were given and which, when the parquette floor of the opera was boarded over, constituted together with it one immense ballroom. To the dancing hall he adjoined a gambling house and a restaurant, which was a favorite haunt of the gilded youth of New Orleans; and the fortune derived from his gaming-tables, his restaurant, and his dance hall supplied John Davis with the capital for his theatrical ventures.
The operas and ballets given in Paris found their way to the Théâtre d’Orléans, where French grand opera was given in the best style by French opera singers, and French actors and dancers appeared in comedy and ballet.
In spite of Davis’s local prominence in New Orleans during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, we catch only occasional glimpses of him in the records of his day.
It would seem that he enjoyed general respect, however, for we find that when, during Count de Roffigran’s mayoralty, the famous old State House was burned, the ballroom of the Théâtre d’Orléans was offered for temporary use “by that good citizen "John Davis” (G. King). And when Gen. Lafayette was entertained in New Orleans in 1825, and had spent an evening at the Théâtre d’Orléans, he extended his thanks to John Davis and the actors.
