Background
Milton Aborn was born on May 18, 1864 at Marysville, California, United States. He was the eldest son of Louis and Fannie (Bornstein) Aborn. During Milton's infancy the family moved to Boston, Massachussets, and there the boy grew up.
Milton Aborn was born on May 18, 1864 at Marysville, California, United States. He was the eldest son of Louis and Fannie (Bornstein) Aborn. During Milton's infancy the family moved to Boston, Massachussets, and there the boy grew up.
In Boston Aborn attended the city's public schools. That was all the formal education that he ever had.
Early displaying talent for the stage, Aborn gradually won local recognition in comedy parts. Before he was twenty-one, the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas were engaging his interest (Boston was foremost among American cities in supporting those works), but at first he sought in vain for an opportunity to star in such productions. At length, having failed to obtain an engagement, he challenged fate by organizing, almost single-handed, an opera company equipped to present Mascotte. The success of that venture, modest though it was, opened for Aborn a career.
In 1887 he was made stage director and leading comedian of the Keith-Albee opera productions in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia and continued in that capacity for eight seasons.
Among the roles in which he appeared then and later were Alonzo in Mascotte, the Lord High Executioner in the Mikado, and Bunthorne in Patience. For five years he toured with his own company and later was associated with his brother, Sargent, in developing a circuit of twelve opera companies in as many cities. One of Aborn's managerial achievements in this period was the first performance in English of Massenet's Thais. Never before had opera been so widely popularized in America.
The movement for low-priced opera and "opera in English" came to a focus in New York under the leadership of Otto H. Kahn during the year 1913. The Aborn interests were then planning a New York theatre in which they intended to produce both grand and comic opera at popular prices. Aborn's long experience in the field made him a desirable aide in such an enterprise as Kahn and his friends were undertaking and so an arrangement was made by which the Century Theatre was turned over to Aborn with a commission to assemble a chorus and cast, with an orchestra, and to present the standard operas in English. In the summer of 1913 he visited England, France, Germany, and Italy to engage singers. Alfred Szendrei was retained as orchestra conductor. In the autumn the subsidized opera opened its performances with great acclaim. The advance subscription sales totaled $200, 000. Many seats were priced at twenty-five cents. For two seasons many of the leading operas were rendered in English. A large public welcomed the experiment and hoped for its success, but its sponsors were finally compelled to admit a falling-off in patronage. The failure could not be charged to inferior management, for the quality of the performances admittedly improved after the first month. The Aborns went back to their personal ventures and for more than a decade continued to entertain audiences with "summer opera, " in which Victor Herbert's popular works figured largely. Memorable in this period were the brilliant revival of the Mikado, with the Shuberts in 1925, and the Century Theatre's unequaled presentation of Pinafore in the following season.
As late as his seventieth year, Aborn would rehearse a company in Gilbert and Sullivan each spring in New York. If one of the soloists chanced to be absent, the white-haired, finely featured director might carry the part himself.
He died at his home in New York City after a heart attack at New Haven, Connecticut, that came during a performance under his direction. He was survived by his wife and their two daughters, Fannie and Amie.
Aborn is best known for being a co-founded and operated Aborn Opera Company, that was active from 1895 through 1922. Aborn's memory retained passages from most of the important operas composed in his lifetime. No American had been more instrumental in making those works known to his countrymen. By proving that the public could support meritorious opera he had helped to raise the level of musical entertainment throughout the nation.
Aborn was a member of the Jewish Theatrical Guild.
Aborn married Nanny Presser on November 2, 1892. They had two daughters.
