On this day in 1908 composer conductor Gustav Mahler made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera conducting Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.

Birthday anniversaries of librettist Ludovic Halévy (1834), writer John Luther Long (1861), librettist E M Forster (1879), conductor Artur Rodzinksi (1892), soprano Marta Fuchs (1898), conductor Giuseppe Patane (1932) and bass Laszlo Polgar (1947).