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.
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On this day in 1497 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama departed on his first voyage.
On this day in 1956 the Douglas Moore/John Latouche opera The Ballad of Baby Doe premiered.
On this day in 1865, the first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published.
On this day in 1954 the musical Wonderful Town closed at Winter Garden Theater after 559 performances.
On this day in 1941 Noël Coward‘s Blithe Spirit premiered in London.
On this day in 1933 Arabella premiered in Dresden.
On this day in 1862 Gustave Flaubert completed Salammbô.
On this day in 1613 Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre burned down.
On this day in 1841 the Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique in Paris premiered the ballet Giselle.
On this day in 1966 Dark Shadows premiered on ABC-TV.
On this day the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.
On this day in 1906, architect Stanford White was shot dead atop Madison Square Garden by Harry Thaw, jealous husband of Evelyn Nesbit, White’s former mistress.
On this day in 1374 a sudden outbreak of St. John’s Dance causeed people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapsed from exhaustion.
On this day in 1868 Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he called the “Type-Writer.”
n this day in 1985 Dallas actress Victoria Principal (“35”) wedded plastic surgeon Harry Glassman (43).
On this day in 1791, the fleeing French King Louis XVI and his family were captured at Varennes-en-Argonne.
On this day in 1893 Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts.
On this day in 1825 Gioacchino Rossini‘s Il viaggio a Reims premiered.
On this day in 1821 Der_Freischütz premiered at the Schauspielhaus Berlin.
On this day in 1971 President Richard Nixon declared the “War on Drugs.”
On this day in 1946 Annie Get Your Gun opened at the Imperial Theater, to run 1,147 performances.
On this day in 1844 Goodyear patented the vulcanization of rubber.
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