1832 | Music
Music
Ballet: La Sylphide 3/12 at the Théâtre de l'Academie Royale de Musique, Paris, with Stockholm-born Italian ballerina Marie Taglioni, 27, who made her debut 10 years ago at Vienna, wears a diaphanous dress with fitted bodice bell-like skirt that foreshadows the tutu, is one of the first women to dance on the points of her toes, and astonishes audiences with her arabesques and other floating leaps; choreography by her father, Filippo Taglioni, now 54, music by French composer Jean Scheitzhoeffer (see 1836).
Opera: Ugo, Conte di Parigi 3/13 at Milan's Teatra alla Scala, with Giulia Grisi (in the role of Adelina) and Giuditta Pasta, music by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, 33. Unable to break a contract she made as a minor, Grisi leaves for Paris, where she makes her debut in October in the title role of Rossini's Semiramide; L'Elisir d'Amore 5/12 at Milan's Teatro alla Scala, with music by Donizetti. The libretto, based on a French comedy, introduces the comic figure Mr. Dulcamara.
Spanish composer-tenor Manuel del Popolo García dies at Paris June 2 at age 57, having written more than 90 operas.
First performances: Overture to The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) by Felix Mendelssohn 5/14 at London's Covent Garden Theatre; Symphony No. 5 in D minor (Reformation) by Mendelssohn 11/15 at Berlin's Singakademie.
Hymn: "Rock of Ages" by Utica, New York, composer Thomas Hastings, 47, with words from the 1776 verses by the late Augustus Toplady.
Patriotic song: "America" with lyrics by Boston Baptist minister Samuel Francis Smith, 23, who has written it in half an hour to the English tune "God Save the King." Schoolchildren at Boston's Park Street Church sing "America" July 4.
Stage musical: The blackface song-and-dance act Jim Crow wins 20 encores at the City Theater on Jefferson Street in Louisville, Kentucky. New York-born carpenter Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice, 24, has seen an elderly, deformed slave named Jim Crow perform a little jump while working in a livery stable near the theater, and he reproduces the man's hop and song: "Wheelabout, turn about,/ Do jes so;/ An' every time I wheel about/ I jump Jim Crow." He brings the act to New York, pioneering the blackface minstrel show (see human rights [Jim Crow law], 1875; Emmett's Virginia Minstrels, 1843).
