1913 - Music

Music

Opera: Austrian tenor Richard (Denemy) Tauber, 21, makes his debut 3/2 at Chemnitz singing the role of Tamino in the 1791 Mozart opera Die Zauberflüte (he will soon obtain British citizenship); Pénélope 3/4 at Monte Carlo, with music by Gabriel Fauré (who is now too deaf to hear it); La Vida Breve (The Short Life) 4/1 at Nice, with music by Spanish composer Manuel de Falla, 36; L'Amore dei tre re (The Love of Three Kings) 4/10 at Milan's Teatro alla Scala, with music by Italian composer Italo Montemezzi, 37; Giovanni Martinelli makes his Metropolitan Opera debut 11/20 singing the role of Rodolfo in the 1896 Puccini opera La Bohème. He will sing regularly with the Met until 1943; Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad, 18, makes her debut 12/12 at Kristiania's (Oslo's) National Theater in the 1903 D'Albert opera Tiefland.

Soprano Mathilde Marchesi de Castrone dies at London November 17 at age 92, having taught the 18th-century bel canto style of singing to pupils who included Emma Calvé, Emma Eames, and Nellie Melba.

Ballet: The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du Printemps) 6/13 at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, choreography by Waslaw Nijinsky (with considerable help from Polish ballerina-choreographer Cyvia Rambam, 25, who will move to London, adopt the stage name Marie Rambert, and eventually start her own company), music by Igor Stravinsky. Outraged audiences stage violent demonstrations at Stravinsky's wild dissonances and tumultuous rhythms, which begin a new epoch in music.

First performances: Gurre-Lieder for Vocal Soloists, Mixed Chorus, and Orchestra by Arnold Schoenberg 2/23 at Vienna with a text based on an 1868 poem by the late Danish poet Jens Peter Jakobsen; Deux Images (symphonic diptych) by Béla Bartók 2/26 at Budapest; Kammersimphonie by Schoenberg 3/31 at Vienna's Musikvereinsaal; Six Pieces for Orchestra by Schoenberg's student Anton von Webern, 29, 3/31 at Vienna's Musikvereinsaal; Falstaff Symphonic Study in C minor (with two interludes in A minor) by Sir Edward Elgar in October at England's Leeds Festival.

Composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor dies at Croydon, Surrey, September 1 at age 37.

Stage musicals: The Sunshine Girl 2/3 at New York's Knickerbocker Theater, with Vernon and Irene Castle doing the Turkey Trot, music by John L. Golden, lyrics by Joseph Cawthorne, 160 perfs.; The Honeymoon Express 2/6 at New York's Winter Garden Theater, with Al Jolson, Fanny Brice, English-born actor Ernest Glendenning, 28, music by Jean Schwartz, book and lyrics by Harold Atteridge and Joseph W. Herbert, 156 perfs.; The Passing Show 6/10 at the Winter Garden Theater, with Charlotte Greenwood, a runway to bring the show's scantily clad chorus girls close to the audience, music chiefly by Sigmund Romberg, lyrics chiefly by Harold Atteridge, 116 perfs.; The Ziegfeld Follies 6/16 at the New Amsterdam Theater, with Fanny Brice, Leon Errol, Wilmington, Del.-born ingénue dancer Ann Pennington, 19, comedian Harry Fox (who does a trotting step that by some accounts will be the basis of "fox-trot" ballroom dance steps), 96 perfs.; America 8/30 at New York's Hippodrome with music and lyrics by Manuel Klein, 360 perfs.; Sweethearts 9/8 at the New Amsterdam Theater, with music by Victor Herbert, lyrics by Robert B. Smith, 136 perfs.; The Pearl Girl 9/25 at London's Shaftesbury Theatre, with music by Howard Talbot; Keep Smiling (revue) 10/13 at London's Alhambra Theatre, with Missouri-born singer Lee White, 27, who has appeared at the Palladium April 21; High Jinks 12/10 at New York's Lyric Theater, with music by Rudolf Friml, book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Leo Ditrichstein, songs that include "Something Seems Tingle-angeling," 213 perfs.

Popular songs: "Danny Boy" by English philosopher-lawyer Fred Weatherly, who has added lyrics to a familiar Irish song; "Peg O' My Heart" by Fred Fisher, lyrics by Alfred Bryan; "You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want to Do It)" by Italian-born New York composer James V. Monaco, 28, lyrics by Joe McCarthy, 28; "Ballin' the Jack" by Charleston, S.C.-born New York composer Chris Smith, 33, lyrics by James Henry Burris; "If I Had My Way" by James Kendis, lyrics by Lou Klein; "He'll Have to Get Under—Get Out and Get Under" by Grant Clarke and Byron Gay, lyrics by Byron Gay that make fun of the growingly popular automobile; "Now Is the Hour (Maori Farewell Song)" by New Zealand songwriters Maewa Kaihan, Clement Scott, Dorothy Stewart.

Hymn: "The Old Rugged Cross" by Ohio-born Methodist evangelist George Bennard, 39, who introduces the number June 7 in rural Michigan.