Soprano Gundula Janowitz, bass Karl Ridderbusch and mezzo Gwendolyn Killebrew all making their Met debuts as Sieglinde, Hundig and Waltraute
Birthday anniversaries of writer and philosopher Francois-Marie Arouet (better known as Voltaire) (1694)
and conductor James dePriest (1936)
On this day in 1901 Richard Strauss‘s Feuersnot premiered in Dresden
Happy 81st birthday mezzo-soprano Julia Hamari
Happy 77th birthday soprano Anne-Marie Rodde
Happy 58th birthday Bjork
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.
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.
