On this day in 1928 Eva Le Gallienne directed and co-starred with Alla Nazimova in a Broadway production of The Cherry Orchard that ran 63 performances. (The Chekhov was performed in repertory with The Cradle Song, Hedda Gabler, The Would-Be Gentleman and Peter Pan, and, no, tragically we don’t have video of any of this.)

On this day in 1976 soprano Hildegard Behrens made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Giorgetta and tenor Neil Shicoff made his debut as Rinuccio.