August 22 — On This Day in Opera

The Salzburg Festival was inaugurated with Hugo von Hofmannsthal's "Jedermann", directed by Max Reinhardt and performed on Cathedral Square, establishing the festival that would become one of the world's foremost centers for opera, drama, and classical music.

Hans Werner Henze's opera "The Bassarids", with a libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman after Euripides, received its world premiere at the Salzburg Festival, conducted by Christoph von Dohnányi.

Ernest Chausson's "Le Roi Arthus" received its first performance in the United Kingdom at the Edinburgh International Festival, nearly a century after the opera's world premiere in Brussels.

Italian soprano Angiolina Bosio was born in Turin. Admired particularly in Verdi repertoire, she developed a major international career that took her to opera houses in London, Paris, Madrid, New York, Moscow, and Saint Petersburg.

French composer Claude Debussy was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. His only completed opera, "Pelléas et Mélisande", became one of the landmark works of modern opera.

Death of Italian operatic mezzo-soprano Sofia Scalchi, who debuted in 1866 as Ulrica in Verdi’s *Un ballo in maschera* and later taught Rita Fornia.

German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen was born in Mödrath near Cologne. His monumental seven-opera cycle "Licht", composed between 1977 and 2003, became one of the most ambitious music-theatre projects of the twentieth century.

American bass-baritone Robert Hale was born in Kerrville, Texas. He became internationally known for Wagnerian roles, particularly Wotan and the Wanderer in "Der Ring des Nibelungen", as well as for Baroque and contemporary opera.

Birth of American operatic soprano Deborah Sasson, renowned for her dual career in opera and musical theater, especially in Germany.