Opera premieres on this day:

Handel’s Alcina (London, 1735)

Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète (Paris, 1849)

Gounod’s Sapho (Paris, 1851)

Happy 80th birthday baritone Leo Nucci.

Birthday anniversaries of playwright John Millington Synge (1871), mezzo-soprano Constance Shacklock (1913), contralto Carol Brice (1918) and soprano Marie Collier (1927).