1883

Met opens on October 22 with Gounod’s Faust.

Silas G. Pratt’s Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra premieres in Chicago.

Brooklyn Bridge opens. Buffalo Bill Cody opens his Wild West Show. 4,800-year-old glove gets new look: first latex condom introduced. Brahms writes 3rd Symphony. Mark Twain writes Life on the Mississippi. Friedrich Nietzsche writes Thus Spake Zarathustra. Robert Louis Stevenson writes Treasure Island. Henrik Ibsen writes An Enemy of the People. Anton Webern born. Richard Wagner and Karl Marx die.

1884

Louis Gruenberg born.

1885

Deems Taylor born.

John Singer Sargent paints Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1885-6). Alban Berg born.

1886

Statue of Liberty dedicated. Auguste Rodin sculpts The Kiss. Georges Seurat points the world to Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

1889

It’s a women’s world:  Doretta by Emma Mary Raymond (1856-1913) premieres in New York; Fleurette by Emma Roberts Steiner premieres in San Francisco; Leoni, the Gypsy Queen by Louisa Delos Mars premieres in Providence.  First known operettas performed by women in US; Ms. Mars is also first known African-American operetta/opera composer.

World’s first skyscraper, the Tacoma Building, erected in Chicago. Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night exhibited at Salon des Indépendants. Adolf Hitler born.

1890

Eiffel Tower completed.  National American Women’s Suffrage Association formed. Oscar Wilde writes The Picture of Dorian Gray. Emily Dickenson’s first volume of poetry is published, four years after her death.

1891

First national park opens at Yellowstone, Wyoming. Thomas Hardy publishes Tess of the D’Urbervilles, subtitled A Pure Woman. Paul Gauguin paints Femmes de Tahiti (ou Sur la plage); Henri Toulouse-Lautrec paints Moulin Rouge.

1892

Ellis Island opens. Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and Massenet’s Werther premiere. John W. Waterhouse paints Circe Invidiosa.

1893

The Martyr by Harry Lawrence Freeman premieres in Denver, CO.  First known performance of an opera by an African-American composer.  John Seymour, Bernard Rogers, Douglas Moore born.

Arturo Toscanini conducts world premiere of Verdi’s final opera, Falstaff, in Bologna. Edvard Munch gives The Scream. London chef Auguste Escoffier creates last-minute dessert for opera singer Nellie Melba from poached peach halves and vanilla ice cream; later adds raspberry sauce and calls it Peach Melba.

1894

Claude Debussy offers musical answer to impressionism with Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.

1895

William Grant Still born.

Lumiere Brothers introduce motion pictures in France.  Marconi sends first radio signals. Before Matthew Bourne, there was Peter I. Tchaikowsky: Swan Lake danced for first time, two years after his death.

1896

Sousa’s El Capitan premieres in Boston. Damrosch’s The Scarlet Letter premieres in Boston. Howard Hanson, Virgil Thomson, Roger Sessions born.

1897

Rev. Enoch Sontonga composes Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika (God Bless Africa) which eventually becomes anti-apartheid anthem. Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull flies for first time.

1898

George Gershwin born.

US occupies Philippines. Paris Metro opens. Constantin Stanislavsky creates Moscow Art Theater. G.B. Shaw writes The Perfect Wagnerite.

1899

Kate Chopin publishes The Awakening; Leo Tolstoy completes Resurrection.

1900

George Antheil, Aaron Copland, Frederick Loewe, Otto Luening, Kurt Weill born.

Albert Einstein announces theory of relativity. Freud writes The Interpretation of Dreams. Zitkala-Sa’s Impressions of an Indian Childhood, The School Days of an Indian Girl and An Indian Teacher Among Indians appears in January, February, March Atlantic Monthly. Unappreciated in America, Isadora Duncan takes her act to Europe, debuts in London and Paris. Puccini’s Tosca premieres.

1901

Ruth Crawford born.

Australia created. Mosquitoes discovered as cause of yellow fever. Verdi and Queen Victoria of England dies.

1902

Die Wald by Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) premieres, only opera by a woman composer ever given at Met.

Richard Rodgers born.

Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande premieres.

1903

Vittorio Giannini born.

Henry Ford sells first Model “A.” Wright Brothers fly first motorized airplane. Edwin Porter directs his film The Great Train Robbery. W.E.B. DuBois writes The Souls of Black Folk and Jack London heeds The Call of the Wild.

1904

New York subway opens. Leoš Janácek’s Jenufa premieres. Alexander von Zemlinsky and Arnold Schönberg found the Alliance of Creative Musicians (Vienna) to encourage new forms in music.

1905

Marc Blitzstein born.

Richard Strauss lifts the veil on Salome, causes a ruckus. Edith Wharton disses New York society in House of Mirth. Gustav Klimt paints The Three Ages of Women. Michael Tippett born.

1906

Earthquake hits on second day of company’s spring tour to San Francisco; sets, costumes, orchestra instruments destroyed in fire; company members unable to return to their rooms at St. Francis Hotel; Enrico Caruso vows never to return to the city.

1907

Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon introduces cubism. Frank Lloyd Wright completes Robey House near Chicago. Edward MacDowell (1860-1908) buys farm in Peterborough, NH, that eventually becomes The MacDowell Colony, a working retreat for artists.

1908

Elliott Carter born.

Robert Henri, John Sloan, George Luks, William Glackens, Everett Shinn, George Bellows form Ashcan School of painters in Greenwich Village.

1909

Robert Perry and Matthew Henson are first Americans to arrive at North Pole. NAACP founded by W.E.B. DuBois. Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and Schönberg’s Erwartung premiere. Gertrude Stein attempts cubism in writing with Three Lives.

1910

Company premiere of The Pipe of Desire by Frederick Shepherd Converse (March 18); first opera by an American composer presented at the Met. World premiere of Giacomo Puccini’s The Girl of the Golden West.

Samuel Barber and Paul Bowles born.

Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle premieres. Henri Rousseau paints The Dream.

1911

Gian Carlo Menotti, Bernard Hermann born.

Calbraith Rodgers lands in Pasadena, CA, completing first US coast-to-coast flight; journey made in 49 days with 69 stops and 16 crash landings; special train carrying spare parts trailed the airplane. Armour Meat Packing Company sponsored flight to promote its grape soft drink “Vin Fiz.” Rodgers dies following year when his plane dives into Pacific off tcoast of Long Beach. Wassily Kandinsky paints Composition IV; he was inspired to devote himself to painting after hearing Wagner’s Lohengrin; lifelong friend of Schönberg.

1912

Met’s first world premiere by an American composer, Horatio Parker’s Mona bows on March 14.

Hugo Weisgall and John Cage born.

Titanic strikes an iceberg and sinks; 1,502 lives are lost.

1913

World premiere of Cyrano by Walter Damrosch (February 27).

The American Maid (Sousa) premieres; 87 years later Glimmerglass Opera restores/revives it as The Glass Blowers. Vivian Fine born.

Ford Motor Company begins world’s first moving assembly line to make “Model–T” cars. The Domelre, first home electric refrigerator, sold in Chicago for $900. Police called to quell riots during first performance of The Rite of Spring (music by Igor Stravinsky, choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky) in Paris. International Exhibition of Modern Art (The Armory Show) brings Symbolism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism, Cubism to the US. Darktown Follies, a musical at Harlem’s Lafayette Theatre, introduces popular social dance “Ballin’ the Jack”; nightly migration by whites to Harlem begins. Benjamin Britten born.

1914

World premiere of Victor Herbert’s Madeleine (January 24).

Norman Dello Joio born.

Ruth St. Denis and husband Ted Shawn open Denishawn School; Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Edna Guy are among first enrollees. In film, The Perils of Pauline series begins.

1915

Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes appears at Met for first time; Vaslav Nijinsky makes US debut; Leonide Massine dances title role in Petroushka (Stravinsky).

Zemlinsky composes A Florentine Tragedy, after Oscar Wilde. Louis Armstrong buys first cornet at Colored Waifs’ Home. D.W. Griffith makes Birth of a Nation and Intolerance.

1916

Silas Gamaliel Pratt dies.

Margaret Sanger launches international birth-control movement. Charles Tomlinson Griffes finishes The White Peacock.

1917

World premiere of The Canterbury Pilgrims by Henry De Koven (March 8).

Robert Ward born.

Russian Revolution begins. US enters WWI. T.S. Eliot channels cats in Prufrock and Other Observations.

1918

World premiere of The Robin Woman: Shanewis by Charles Wakefield Cadman (March 23); first American opera at Met to be revived in a subsequent season (1918-19). Puccini’s Il Trittico given world premiere.

Leonard Bernstein born.

Russia’s last imperial family Nicholas and Alexandra Romanov and their five children murdered by Bolsheviks. Worldwide influenza epidemic breaks out.

1919

March 12 brings world premieres of The Legend (Joseph Carl Breil) and The Temple Dancer (John Hugo).

Leon Kirchner born. Horatio Parker dies.

Mahatma Gandhi launches Satyagraha (nonviolent civil disobedience) movement.

1920

Henry Hadley’s Cleopatra’ s Night debuts (January 31); returns in 1920-21 season.

Henry De Koven dies.

Prohibition begins. 19th Amendment gives women the right to vote. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti arrested on charges of murder and robbery. D.H. Lawrence kisses, tells Women in Love. Hollywood studio system formalized with Warner Brothers, MGM, RKO, Famous Players-Lasky (eventually Paramount Pictures) and Fox Film Corporation (later 20th Century Fox). Cowl necks, halter tops and flapper dresses set the style for the decade.

1921

Jack Beeson, Seymour Barab, William Bergsma, Robert Kurka born.

US enacts first immigration quota. 

1922

Lucas Foss born.

Mussolini seizes power in Italy supported by tens of thousands of Fascists.

1923

Henry Hadley’s Semper Virens is first West Coast world premiere (Sonoma County, CA). Ned Rorem born.

Earthquake destroys Tokyo and Yokohama killing over 140,000 people. Existence of Ku Klux Klan confirmed. Chanel No. 5 debuts.

1924

Ezra Laderman born. Victor Herbert dies.

Teapot Dome Scandal paves wave for future energy/oil corruption: naval oil reserve leased to private individuals by the Secretary of the Interior. Janáček’s foxes sing in The Cunning Little Vixen. Giacomo Puccini dies leaving his final opera Turandot uncompleted; ditto Ferruccio Busoni and Doktor Faust. Pablo Neruda writes 20 Love Poems and One Song of Despair.

1925

Kirke Mechem born.

Tennessee passes law outlawing teaching of evolution after John Scopes, biology teacher in Dayton, accused of teaching Darwinian theory. Alban Berg’s Wozzeck premieres. Alain LeRoy Locke publishes anthology of stories, poems, and essays, The New Negro, defining the Harlem Renaissance. Ezra Pound publishes first volume of Cantos. Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby hit the shelves. Luciano Berio born.

1926

Joseph D. Redding’s Fay-Yen-Fah is first American work presented by San Francisco Opera. Lee Hoiby and Carlisle Floyd born. Joseph Carl Breil dies.

Georgia O’Keefe paints Black Iris III.

1927

World premiere of Deems Taylor’s 1906 The King’s Henchman (February 17); revived in 1927-28, 1928-29 seasons.

Dominick Argento born.

Death Comes for [Willa Cather’s] Archbishop.

1928

Harry Lawrence Freeman’s jazz, blues and spirituals-infused Voodoo premieres at Negro Grand Opera Company in Harlem; broadcast on NY public radio

Penicillin discovered. Doris Humphrey’s Water Study incorporates her theory of fall and recovery and uses only waves and natural human breath for sound. The original Real World: Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude premieres. Che Guevara born in Argentina.

1929

Andre Previn born.

Black Tuesday: stock market crashes. Three Penny Opera (Weill) premieres in Berlin. William Faulkner writes The Sound and the Fury; Ernest Hemingway writes A Farewell to Arms; Dorothy Parker writes The Big Blonde.

1930

Antheil’s Transatlantic premieres in Frankfurt. Stephen Sondheim born.

Nazis win majority in Germany Parliament. General Electric Company introduces the flash bulb for taking photos. Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny premieres in Germany. Grant Wood’s finishes austere American Gothic.

1931

World premiere of Peter Ibbetson (Deems Taylor); revived in 1931-32, 1933-34, 1934-35 for total of 22 performances, making it Met’s most successful American commission and most popular American opera until Porgy and Bess appears in 1985.

Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing plays on Broadway.

Empire State Building opens becoming world’s tallest building at 102 stories and 1,250 feet high. Pearl Buck’s second novel, The Good Earth, arrives at top of best seller list and stays for two years. Salvador Dalí paints The Persistence of Memory. Charlie Chaplin writes, directs and stars as the Tramp in City Lights.

1932

Marvin David Levy born.

World’s most famous baby, 20-month-old Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr., kidnapped from home in central New Jersey.

1933

World premiere of Louis Gruenberg’s The Emperor Jones (January 7).

1933-34 season opens with Peter Ibbetson, first American opera honored so; season continues with world stage premiere of Howard Hanson’s Merry Mount (February 10) and revival of Emperor Jones.

Leslie Adams born.

Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany; first concentration camp opens at Dachau. Japan leaves League of Nations. President Roosevelt unveils New Deal to provide work for thousands and relieve agony of Depression. Prohibition repealed. George Balanchine accepts Lincoln Kirstein’s invitation to come to US to start a school which would serve as the incubator for New York City Ballet.

1934

Premiere of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s Four Saints in Three Acts in Hartford, CT; it is produced by the Friends and Enemies of Modern Music, choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton, conducted by the composer and performed by an all-black cast.

Mao Tse-Tung begins Long March covering over 6,000 miles. Dmitri Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk premieres in Leningrad; Stalin attends performance two years later and officially condemns the opera and composer.

1935

World premiere of In the Pasha’s Garden by John Seymour (January 24).

Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess premieres at Alvin Theater in New York. Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya immigrate to US. John Eaton and Conrad Susa born.

Social Security Act created to provide unemployment insurance and old-age pension. Pietro Mascagni’s final opera Nerone premieres at La Scala.

1936

Johnny Johnson is Weill’s first Broadway show. Steve Reich born.

Standard Oil of California strikes oil in Saudi Arabia. Dancer/choreographer Katherine Dunham visits Martinique, Jamaica, and Trinidad and gathers material for