WindyCityOperaman
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.
On this day in 1809 the second Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (designed by Robert Smirke) opened with a performance of Macbeth followed by a musical entertainment called The Quaker.
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On this day in 1977, Maria Callas left this world. Do you remember where you were?
On this day in 1985 The Golden Girls, starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, debuted on NBC.
On this day in 1963 The Outer Limits premiered on ABC TV.
On this day in 490 BC Athenians and their Plataean allies defeated the first Persian invasion force of Greece at the Battle of Marathon.
On this day in 1850, the “Swedish Nightingale,” Jenny Lind, gave her first United States concert.
On this day in 1863 Georges Bizet’s opera Les Pêcheurs de Perles premiered in Paris.
On this day Queen Elizabeth II becomes Great Britain’s becomes longest-reigning monarch.
On this day in 1953 the musical Carnival in Flanders opened at the New Century Theater in New York, to run six performances.
You know what they all said: “At this rate, she’ll never make it to 50.”
On this day in 1791 Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito premiered in Prague.
On this day in 1609 navigator Henry Hudson became the first European to discover the island of Manhattan.
Born on this day in 1910 actress and television personality Kitty Carlisle.
On this day in 44 BC Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt declared her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion.
On this day in 1878, the first female telephone operator, Emma Nutt (not pictured) started work in Boston.
On this day in 1056 Empress Theodora became ill, dying suddenly a few days later, without children to succeed the throne, ending the Macedonian dynasty.
Born on this day in 1797 author Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley.
According to an ancient American legend, on this day in 1896 the Chinese-American dish chop suey was created in New York City by the Cantonese chef of Chinese Ambassador Li Hung-Chang.
On this day in 1850 Richard Wagner‘s romantic opera Lohengrin premiered at Weimar, conducted by Franz Liszt.
On this day in 1665 Ye Bare & Ye Cubb became the first play performed in North America (at Acomac, VA.)
On this day in 1498 Michelangelo was commissioned to carve the Pietà.
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