“Out of the clear blue ether of the sky there seems to condense a wonderful yet at first hardly perceptible vision; and out of this there gradually emerges, ever more and more clearly, an angel host bearing in its midst the sacred Grail.” — R. Wagner

Born on this day in 1844 impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte.

On this day in 1960 Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt‘s Fantasticks premiered at Greenwich Village’s Sullivan Street Playhouse.

Birthday anniversaries of singer and actor Bing Crosby (1903), composer and conductor Alceo Galliera (1910), tenor Léopold Simoneau (1916) and lyricist and performer Betty Comden (1917).