May 19 Dateline

Birthdays

1861 - Dame Nellie Melba, (born Helen Porter Mitchell), DBE, Australian operatic soprano, one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early 20th century, and was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician. She took the pseudonym "Melba" from Melbourne, her home town. She moved to Europe in search of a singing career. She studied in Paris, made a great success there and in Brussels. Returning to London she established herself as the leading lyric soprano at Covent Garden. She was successful in Europe and later at New York's Metropolitan Opera. She was known for her performances in French and Italian opera, but sang little German opera. She raised large sums for WWI charities. She returned to Australia frequently during the 20th century, singing in opera and concerts. She was active as singing teacher at the Melbourne Conservatorium. Her death, in Australia, was news across the English-speaking world, and her funeral was a major national event. The Australian $100 note features her image.

1914 - Max Perutz (born Max Ferdinand Perutz, OM CH CBE FRS, Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of haemoglobin and myoglobin. He went on to win the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1971 and the Copley Medal in 1979. At Cambridge he founded and chaired (1962–79) the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), fourteen of whose scientists have won Nobel Prizes. Perutz's contributions to molecular biology in Cambridge are documented in The History of the University of Cambridge: Volume 4 (1870 to 1990) published by the Cambridge University Press in 1992.

1930 - Lorraine Vivian Hansberry, American playwright, known for her best work A Raisin in the Sun, the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. At the age of 29, she won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award — making her the first African-American dramatist, the fifth woman, and the youngest playwright to do so. Hansberry's family had struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant and eventually provoking the 1940 Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee.

1941 - Nora Ephron, American journalist, writer, and filmmaker. She is best known for her romantic comedy films and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Writing: for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally..., and Sleepless in Seattle. She won a BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay for When Harry Met Sally.... She often co-wrote scripts with her sister Delia Ephron. Her last film was Julie & Julia. Her first produced play, Imaginary Friends, was honored as one of the ten best plays of the 2002–03 New York theatre season. In 2013, Ephron received a posthumous Tony Award nomination for Best Play for Lucky Guy. She also directed “You’ve Got Mail” starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.

1942 - Carla Maria Zampatti AC, OMRI, Italian-Australian fashion designer and businesswoman, and executive chair of the fashion label Carla Zampatti Pty Ltd. Zampatti became one of the first Australian designers to introduce swimwear into her collection. Expanding into other areas of fashion, she was commissioned to create the first designer eyewear of Polaroid's range. In 1983, Zampatti launched her first successful perfume, 'Carla', and a second in 1987, 'Bellezza'. In partnership with Ford Australia, Zampatti redesigned a car especially for the women's market. Zampatti held a number of directorships, including chairman of the SBS Corporation, a director of the Westfield Group, and a trustee of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Lefties:
None known 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, May 19 - On This Day.

 

Historical Events

1536 - The execution of Anne Boleyn takes place. She was Henry VIII's second wife and mother to Elizabeth I. She stood accused of adultery. She is buried in a chapel at the Tower of London.

1842 - G. Donizetti's opera Linda di Chamounix is first performed, in Vienna.

Here's a personal favourite interpretation from the late Dame Joan Sutherland singing Donizetti's Linda Di Chamonix - "Ah! tardai troppo ... O luce di quest'anima."

 

 

1886 - Camille Saint-Saen's Symphony No. 3, for organ, two pianos, and orchestra, "Organ Symphony," is first performed, in London.  Below is a performance of  Saint-Saëns - Symphony No 3 in C minor, Op 78 - Thierry Escaich, organ; Paavo Järvi conducting the Orchestre de Paris.  YouTube, uploaded by Classical Vault 1. Accessed May 19, 2023.  

May 18 Dateline

Birthdays

1830 - Karl Goldmark (born Károly Goldmark, Keszthely), Hungarian-born Viennese  composer. His opera Die Königin von Saba ("The Queen of Sheba"), Op. 27 was celebrated during his lifetime. First performed in Vienna on 10 March 1875, the work proved so popular that it remained in the repertory of the Vienna Staatsoper continuously until 1938. He wrote six other operas. The Rustic Wedding Symphony (Ländliche Hochzeit), Op. 26 (premiered 1876), was kept in the repertory by Sir Thomas Beecham, and Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 28, was once his most frequently played piece. A very romantic work, it has a Magyar march in the first movement and passages reminiscent of Dvořák and Mendelssohn in the second and third movements.

1868 - Nicholas II (Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer, was the last Emperor of All Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March 1917. During his reign the Russian Empire fell from one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse. He was reviled by Soviet historians as a weak and incompetent leader whose decisions led to military defeats and the deaths of millions of his subjects. By contrast Anglo-Russian historian Nikolai Tolstoy, leader of the International Monarchist League, said in 2012, "There were many bad things about the Czar's regime, but he inherited an autocracy and his acts are now being seen in perspective and in comparison to the terrible crimes committed by the Soviets."

1872 - Bertrand Russell, (Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell), OM FRS, British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, essayist, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate. Throughout his life, Russell considered himself a liberal, a socialist and a pacifist, although he also sometimes suggested that his sceptical nature had led him to feel that he had "never been any of these things, in any profound sense."

1913 - Perry Como (born Pierino Ronald Como), American singer and actor. He recorded exclusively for RCA Victor for 44 years, after signing with the label in 1943. "Mr. C.", as he was nicknamed, sold millions of records and pioneered a weekly musical variety television show. Como received five Emmys, a Christopher Award and shared a Peabody Award with good friend Jackie Gleason. He was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in 1990 and received a Kennedy Center Honor. Posthumously, Como received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame. He has the distinction of having three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in radio, television, and music.

1919 - Dame Margot Fonteyn, stage name of Margaret Evelyn de Arias, was an English ballerina. (Margot Fonteyn, a Documentary. Updated by Susan Avenue. Accessed February 12, 2019.) She spent her entire career as a dancer with the Royal Ballet (formerly the Sadler's Wells Theater Company), eventually being appointed prima ballerina assoluta of the company by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. In 1961, when she was considering retirement, Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, the greatest ballet dancer of his generation, defected from the Kirov Ballet while dancing in Paris. Though reluctant to partner with him because of their 19-year age difference, Fonteyn danced with him in his début with the Royal Ballet in Giselle, on 21 February 1962. The duo immediately became an international sensation. I love their pas de deux in Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Romeo & Juliet, and La Sylphide, but best of all, their Giselle ballet, Act II Pas de deux overwhelms me. Incredible artistic expression from both.  (video below: M. Fonteyn dancing with Rudolf Nureyev - Accessed May 18, 2018.)

1920 - Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła), Head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 to 2005. He was elected pope by the second papal conclave of 1978, which was called after Pope John Paul I, who had been elected in August to succeed Pope Paul VI, died after 33 days. Cardinal Wojtyła was elected on the third day of the conclave and adopted the name of his predecessor in tribute to him. John Paul II is recognised as helping to end Communist rule in his native Poland and eventually all of Europe. He significantly improved the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. He upheld the Church's teachings on such matters as the right to life, artificial contraception, the ordination of women, and a celibate clergy. Although he supported the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, he was seen as generally conservative in their interpretation.

Lefties:
None known

Death: 

1911 - Composer Gustav Mahler, one of the leading composers of his generation.  It was shortly after 11 o’clock in the evening, May 18, 1911. Mahler lay with dazed eyes; one finger was conducting on the quilt. There was a smile on his lips and said: "Mozart!" "Mozart!"  

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, May 18 - On This Day. 

 

Features: 

Dame Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev performing  Tchaikovsky's famous Swan Lake, Op. 20,  Act 4 - Pas de deux. Apology, this video is no longer available. Instead, here's Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn - SWAN LAKE - act 3 Pas de Deux. Youtube, uploaded by Rare Ballet & Opera Videos. Accessed February 8, 2023.

 

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Karl Goldmark's Rustic Wedding Symphony (Ländliche Hochzeit) in E-flat major, Op. 26. He wrote this music in 1875, a year before his renowned Violin Concerto No. 1. The symphony was premiered in Vienna on 5 March 1876, conducted by Hans Richter. Johannes Brahms, a frequent walking companion of Goldmark's, and whose own Symphony No. 1 was not premiered until November 1876, told him: "That is the best thing you have done; clear-cut and faultless, it sprang into being a finished thing, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter." Its first American performance was at New York Philharmonic Society concert, conducted by Theodore Thomas on 13 January 1877.