1906 - Music

Music

Opera: Quattro Rusteghi (The School for Fathers) 3/19 at Munich, with music by Italian composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, 29; The Wreckers (Standrecht) 11/11 at Leipzig, with music by English composer Ethel Smyth, 48. Geraldine Farrar makes her Metropolitan Opera debut singing the role of Juliet in the 1867 Gounod opera Roméo et Juliette; Italian soprano Amalita Galli-Curci, 24 (or 17) makes her debut at Trani 12/26 singing the role of Gilda in the 1851 Verdi opera Rigoletto.

Librettist-playwright Giuseppe Giacosa dies at his native Colleretto Parella outside Turin September 1 at age 58.

Ballet: Newark, N.J.-born dancer-choreographer Ruth Dennis, 29, produces her first ballet, Radha, and changes her name to St. Denis. She will tour Europe with the ballet for the next 3 years (see 1914).

The Victrola introduced by the Victor Talking Machine Co. has a phonograph horn enclosed in a speaker (see "His Master's Voice," 1900). Eldridge Johnson signed up operatic tenor Enrico Caruso in 1901 and makes recordings by having Caruso sing directly into a horn while solo instrumentalists play into other horns (see 1922).

Stage musicals: Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway 1/1 at the New Amsterdam Theater, with Fay Templeton, Hammonton, N.J.-born actor Victor Moore, 29, music and lyrics by George M. Cohan, songs that include "Mary's a Grand Old Name" and the title song, 90 perfs. (Templeton plays a housemaid who scorns a fortune to marry the man she loves, but in real life she marries an industrialist and becomes one of the richest women in America); Twiddle-Twaddle 1/1 at Weber's Music Hall, New York, with Joe Weber, Trixie Friganza, book and lyrics by Edgar Smith, music by Maurice Levi, 137 perfs.; The Vanderbilt Cup 1/16 at the Broadway Theater, with Columbus, Ohio-born ingénue Elsie Janis (originally Elsie Jane Bierbower), 16, music by Robert Hood Bowers, 143 perfs.; George Washington, Jr. 2/12 at the Knickerbocker Theater, with George M. Cohan, San Francisco-born actor John Willard (originally Charles Edwin Clapp), 20, songs by Cohan that include "You're a Grand Old Flag," 81 perfs.; The Girl Behind the Counter 4/21 at Wyndham's Theatre, London, with Isabel Jay, 141 perfs.; His Honor the Mayor 5/28 at the New York Theater, with songs that include "Waltz Me Around Again, Willie (Around, Around, Around)," by Ren Shields, lyrics by Will D. Cobb, 30, 104 perfs.; About Town 8/30 at the Herald Square Theater, with English-born dancer Vernon Castle (originally Vernon Blythe), 19, Louise Dresser, Lew Fields, Jack Norworth, music by Melville Ellis and Raymond Hubbell, book and lyrics by Joseph Herbert, 138 perfs.; The Red Mill 9/24 at the Knickerbocker Theater, with Dave Montgomery, Fred Stone, music by Victor Herbert, book and lyrics by Henry Blossom, songs that include "In Old New York," "Every Day Is Ladies Day with Me," 274 perfs.

First performances: Jour d'été à la montagna by Vincent d'Indy 2/18 at Paris; Symphony No. 6 by Gustav Mahler 5/27 at Essen.

Composer-music teacher John Knowles Paine dies at Cambridge, Mass., April 25 at age 67.

Popular songs: "China Town, My China Town" by Jean Schwartz, lyrics by William Jerome; "School Days" by Will D. Cobb, lyrics by Gus Edwards; "Anchors Aweigh" (march and two-step) by U.S. Naval Academy musical director Charles A. Zimmerman, 45, and midshipman Alfred H. Miles, 23.