Happy 77th birthday bass Paul Plishka. Happy 87th birthday opera director Tito Capobianco.On this day in 1850 Wagner’s Lohengrin premiered at the Staatskapelle Weimar.Birthday anniversaries of composer Umberto Giordano (1867), conductors Karl Böhm (1894), Berislav Klobucar (1924) and István Kertész (1929), soprano Irene Jessner (1901), tenor Richard Tucker (1913) baritone Nicolae Herlea (1927), bass-baritone John Shirley-Quirk and soprano Cristina Deutekom (both 1931), and mezzo-soprano Lucia Valentini-Terrani (1948)
The long haul
WindyCityOperaman
Dan Soda (Windy City Operaman) is a Chicago native whose first visit to opera was at age 17 and Massenet’s Werther with Troyanos and Kraus. Nothing was ever the same. Opera and concert performances, recordings and video are an obsession. He prepares Parterre Box’s daily birthday and anniversary tributes. He also enjoys concerts, live theater and movies.
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Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.