Birthday anniversaries of composers Bedrich Smetana (1824), Kurt Weill (1900) and Marc Blitzstein (1905), tenor Thomas Burke (1890) and conductor Anthony Lewis (1915).
Never mind the ants
On this day in 1960 debonair Don Ameche donned yellowface to star in the notorious flop musical 13 Daughters, which ran 28 performances.
Not surprisingly, there was no original cast album, though the 11 o’clock number “Puka Puka Pants” enjoyed a sort of ghastly half-life outside the show.
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.