1898 - Music

Music

Opera: Croatian soprano Milka Ternina (Trnina), 34, makes her Covent Garden debut 6/3 in the role of Isolde and goes on to sing the Wagnerian roles of Sieglinde in Die Walküre, Brünhilde in Siegfried and Gotterdamerung, and Leonore in the 1805 Beethoven opera Fidelio (she will sing next year at the Bayreuth Festival); Czech soprano Emmy Destinn (Ema Destinnová), 20, makes her debut 7/19 in the role of Santuzza in the 1890 Mascagni opera Cavalleria Rusticana at the Berlin Krolloper; Fritzi Scheff makes her Metropolitan Opera debut as Marcelline in Fidelio.

First performances: Pelléas and Mélisande orchestral suite by Gabriel Fauré 6/21 at the Prince of Wales' Theatre, London, for a production of the 1893 Maurice Maeterlinck play with Mrs. Patrick Campbell.

Stage musicals: A Runaway Girl 5/21 at London's Gaiety Theatre, with comedian Edmund Payne, music by Ivan Caryll and Lionel Monckton; A Greek Slave 6/8 at Daly's Theatre, London, with music by Sidney Jones; The Charlatan 9/5 at New York's Knickerbocker Theater, with book by Charles Klein, music by John Philip Sousa, 35 perfs.; The Fortune Teller 9/26 at Wallack's Theater, New York, with music by Irish-born conductor-composer Victor Herbert, 30, book and lyrics by Harry B. Smith, songs that include "Gypsy Love Song," 40 perfs.

Popular songs: "The Rosary" by Ethelbert Nevin, 36, lyrics by Robert Cameron Rogers, 36; "When You Were Sweet Sixteen" by English-born U.S. songwriter James Thornton, 37.

Instrument maker C. G. Conn produces the first Sousaphone (see saxophone, 1889). Made to John Philip Sousa's specifications, the big brass horn will become popular with marching bands; Conn's Elkhart, Ind., factory will be the world's largest of its kind by 1905 (see 1915).