1892 - Music

Music

Stage musicals: The Mountebanks 1/4 at London's Lyric Theater, 228 perfs.; Haddon Hall 9/24 at London's Savoy Theatre, with Courtice Pounds, book by Sydney Grundy, music by Arthur S. Sullivan, 204 perfs.

Opera: Pagliacci 5/21 at Milan's Teatro dal Verme, with music by Italian composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo, 34, who delights audiences with his aria "Vesti la Giubba;" Mlada 10/20 at St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater, with music by Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov that includes "Night on Mount Triglov"; Iolanta 12/18 at St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater, with music by Petr Ilich Tchaikovsky.

Ballet: The Nutcracker Suite (Casse-Noisette) 12/17 at St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater, with the Imperial Ballet, choreography by Marius Petipa's assistant Lev Ivanov, music by Petr Ilich Tchaikovsky. Its libretto is based on the 1816 E. T. A. Hoffman tale "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" as retold by Alexandre Dumas père, but its abrupt shift to fantasy makes no sense, and the work does not catch on with European audiences. It will become popular only in America, and not even there until the 1940s and 1950s.

Dancer-choreographer Jules Perrot dies at Paramé, France, August 24 at age 82.

First performances: Carneval Overture by Antonin Dvorák 4/28 at Prague on the eve of the composer's departure for New York; Prelude in C sharp minor by Sergei Rachmaninoff 9/24 at Moscow; Symphony No. 8 in C minor by Anton Bruckner 12/18 at Vienna.

Composer Edouard Lalo dies at Paris April 22 at age 70.

Popular songs: "Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two)" by English songwriter Harry Dacre, 32 (possibly a pen name for Frank Dean), who is visiting America.

Bandmaster-composer Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore dies suddenly while conducting his band at St. Louis September 24 at age 62; lieder composer Robert Franz dies at his native Halle, Saxony, October 24 at age 77, having written more than 350 songs, many of them to texts by Heinrich Heine.