MEDIA
Our Mission
The National Opera House (NOH) is a nonprofit organization based out of Pittsburgh, PA. Our primary mission is to preserve the arts, culture, and music in underserved communities. We welcome you to join us on this journey.
THE NATIONAL OPERA HOUSE MEDIA CENTER
February 6, 2025
Pittsburgh Historic Landmark has one Year to raise 7 million dollars
The clock is ticking for the historic National Opera House in Pittsburgh.
If owner Jonnet Solomon isn’t able to raise a final $7 million to restore the house in the next 12 months, much of the construction accomplished to date will have to be redone, setting a decades-long, multi-million dollar restoration project back another year or more.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Jeremy Reynolds
The City of Pittsburgh and local nonprofits, including AARP and Pittsburgh Opera, gathered on Feb. 3 to celebrate ongoing efforts to restore the former home of the National Negro Opera Company.
On a whim 25 years ago, Guyana native Jonnet Solomon and the late Miriam White purchased the Homewood building that once housed the National Negro Opera Company. 
KDKA Radio
It was the first black opera company, founded in 1941. City officials say the company broke racial barriers and gave African American performers a platform in a predominantly white industry.
Here are a few ways to honor and celebrate Black History in Downtown Pittsburgh this month and every month.
In this episode, Jim Cunningham speaks with the Executive Director of the National Opera House, Jonnet Solomon, about their upcoming exhibit at Grand Lobby in the City-County Building on Grant Street.Junw 20, 2024
Pittsburgh’s historic National Negro Opera House is in key funding phase
Two years ago, Jonnet Solomon hosted the ceremonial groundbreaking to restore the badly dilapidated Homewood building that was the first home of the National Negro Opera Company, a pioneering troupe founded by Black musician, educator and impresario Mary Cardwell Dawson.
WESA Arts
Bill O’Driscoll
Déde project and the partnership to create this with French Consulate, National Opera House, & Opera Lafayette.
U
Spotlights Jonnet’s life in PGH and her work to preserve 7101 Apple St.
Discusses the historic creation and placement of portrait of MDC in NEC Blumenthal Family Library.
Discusses nomination to historic register/PHLF/historical misrepresentation.
Discusses how Jonnet came to learn about 7101 Apple, Mary Cardwell Dawson. It covers the fight to save he house and her desire to restore the history.
Talks with Amelia Reines about her inspiration in the history of NNOC.
Discusses
The New England Conservatory honors alumna Mary Cardwell Dawson, a trailblazing Black opera singer, in a new portrait by Iris Lee Marcus that will be permanently displayed in NEC’s Blumenthal Family Library. Open to view by the public and the students, the portrait highlights the diverse and often overlooked history of the conservatory.
Speaks about Mary Cardwell Dawson’s impact on Pittsburgh’s music scene.
Quick overview about the history of NNOH. Mentions being the most endangered historic places and the purchase of the home.
Discusses 1st phase – stabilization beginning on site.
Discusses 5.24 ground breaking.
Day of sizzle coverage. The home in the Lincoln-Lemington neighborhood will be restored.
History of NNOC and interview with Jonnet about what’s next for 7101 Apple Street.February 11, 2022
The Fight to Save the National Negro Opera Company House
Jonnet Solomon was driving through Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood one day more than 20 years ago when a large, abandoned Queen Anne-style manor house on Apple Street caught her eye. She pulled over, got out, and read the historical plaque outside. This marked her first encounter with the story of the National Negro Opera Company, an organization founded in 1941 by Mary Cardwell Dawson that was once headquartered in the building.
National Trust for Historic Preservation
Tim O’Donnell
Pittsburgh was a numbers city. Throughout much of the 20th century, people throughout the Steel City played the daily street lottery hoping for one big hit that could improve their economic circumstances. It was seductive: a single nickel or a dime played on three digits could yield a return greater than a week’s pay for many of the city’s general laborers and mill workers.
July 15, 2021
National Trust Awards $3 Million in Grants to 40 Sites to Help Preserve Black History
On July 15, 2021, the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced more than $3 million in grants to 40 sites and organizations through its African American Cultural. Heritage Action Fund.
National Trust for Historic Preservation
Lawana Holland-Moore
Speaks to NOH receiving $75k in grant money from the African American Cultural Heritage Action FunJune 8, 2021
Negro Opera Birthplace Rescued By A Visionary With Preservation Goal
PITTSBURGH — Few people would have even noticed the abandoned, dilapidated Queen Anne-style building on Apple Street in Homewood, a predominately Black neighborhood of Pittsburgh, but the blue and gold historical marker outside it caught Jonnet Solomon’s attention.
Classical Voice North America
Rick Perdian
April 16, 2021
The National Negro Opera Co. House Gets Another Chance — And a $500,000 Grant
Abandoned for more than half a century, the birthplace of the National Negro Opera Company in Homewood is on the verge of collapse; The National Trust for Historic Preservation recently named it one of the 11 most endangered historic sites in the U.S.
Pittsburgh Magazine
Jessica Sinichak
Homewood, which the National Trust for Historic Preservation recently named it one of the 11 most endangered historic sites in the U.S.April 14, 2021
National Negro Opera House — once the center of Black cultural life in Pittsburgh — receives $500K grant
For 20 years, Jonnet Solomon has made it her mission to preserve, protect and ultimately restore a national landmark, the National Negro Opera House in Homewood, named one of the 11 most endangered historic sites in the country.
Next Pittsburgh
Michael Machosky
April 13, 2021
National Negro Opera Company House in Homewood receives $500,000 for Restoration
A major Pittsburgh-based nonprofit is helping to bring the National Negro Opera Company House in Homewood, an important piece of the city’s Black history that has stood vacant for over 50 years, back to its former glory.
City Paper
Amanda Waltz
One of Pittsburgh’s most endangered historical landmarks received a big boost toward preservation on Monday. The Richard King Mellon Foundation announced it was awarding $500,000 to efforts to restore the National Negro Opera Company House, in Homewood.
The Richard King Mellon Foundation announced a $500,000 grant to restore the former National Negro Opera Company House in Homewood and to convert it into a museum.
Interview between Graham Fanderi and Jonnet Solomon about the history of NNOH, how Jonnet found the idea to invest in 7101 Apple Street, and plans for the future.
By now, more folks in our communities and organizations are likely to be familiar with the terms and concepts of intersectionality and being a “double minority,” which refer to the entangled aspects of one’s identity that situate them at various points within the social strata.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Talks about the history of NNOH, the work and legacy of Mary Cardwell Dawson, and future plans for 7101 Apple Street
TWO DECADES AGO, Jonnet Solomon was driving through the Homewood section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when she saw a plaque in front of a condemned Victorian house on Apple Street.
In the 1940s, 
The run-down Victorian house on Apple Street, in Homewood, might escape notice save for the historic marker out front. But its boarded-up windows belie its status as one of the country’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.
Discover the history of The National Opera House.
Transcript of an interview featuring Jonnet and other guest speakers talking about the purchase of 7107 Apple Street and why it’s important to preserve this landmark.
There’s a house that sits on top of a hill in Pittsburgh. The windows are boarded up. The roof is falling in. But once it was a bustling hub of Black art and culture. Today the National Trust for Historic Preservation named it one of 11 of the most endangered historic places in the U.S. because, as NPR’s Andrew Limbong reports, it was home to a pioneer of Black opera.
There’s never been a time when the places around us have mattered more. While the coronavirus pandemic has put a lock-down on international travel, preventing Americans from visiting most of the world, there’s been a silver lining—the experience has inspired many of us to look around and explore what’s in our own backyard.
In the 1920s, a young opera singer by the name of Mary Cardwell came face-to-face with a hard truth: the color of her skin would dictate the outcome of her career.
PDF of artifacts from the National Negro Opera House such as programs and promotional material
Standing in the shadow of Mystery Manor, the former home of the National Negro Opera Company in Homewood, Alisha Wormsley and Anqwenique Wingfield were met with a disquieting silence. “It was kind of surreal,” Wingfield says. “Scary-movie surreal.”
A dilapidated façade betrays the rich historical significance held within the walls of a Pittsburgh estate. Mystery Manor sits at the top of a hill on Apple Street in Homewood, a predominantly Black, lower income neighborhood. Homewood at the turn of the 20th century was a beacon for ethnic whites and upper middle class Blacks, drawn in by the affordable housing.
From the front yard, the run-down Queen Anne-style mansion at 7101 Apple Street in Pittsburgh appears to have its best days behind it, much like the surrounding, predominantly African-American Homewood neighborhood. Most of the 72 windows on the three-story structure are boarded up. The wraparound porch is buckling, and stucco is chipping off the wall. Hearing owner Jonnet Solomon describe the litany of break-ins that have occurred over the last few decades is like listening to an archeologist recall the splendor of an ancient temple sacked by vandals centuries ago.April 16, 2014
NATIONAL NEGRO OPERA COMPANY (1941-1962)
Mary Cardwell Dawson established the National Negro Opera Company (NNOC) in 1941 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Born in North Carolina, Dawson graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1925, the only African American in her class.
Black Past
Charlene J. Fletcher
More than three decades after her death, Pittsburgh’s pioneer black opera company founder Mary Cardwell Dawson (1894-1962) has finally been honored for her many contributions to the Commonwealth’s musical heritage. On Sunday, September 25, 1994, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission unveiled and dedicated a state historical marker at the site of the Cardwell School of Music, 7101 Apple Street, in Pittsburgh. It was at the music school she had founded that the black music teacher organized, in 1941, the first national African American opera company. Indignant because her students were denied professional opportunities in opera because of rampant racism in the field of music, Mary Cardwell Dawson founded a company that endured for nearly two decades.Welcome to our Media Page! Should you have any media ideas or published articles, please feel free to reach us by clicking “Contact Media” link.
Our Goal
We are committed to the full restoration of the National Opera House by mid 2024. To accomplish this goal, we must raise $20 million dollars. 75% of the funds will be used to restore the National Opera House while the remaining 25% will go to programs and operations. Every amount helps us get closer to our goal.
SUPPORT THE NATIONAL OPERA HOUSE
Stay Connected
Events, updates, news and more…