September 8 — On This Day in Opera

Birth of Italian composer Luigi Cherubini, whose operas such as "Médée" influenced the transition from Classical to Romantic styles.

Antonín Dvořák, Czech composer whose operas include "Rusalka", "The Jacobin", "The Devil and Kate", and "Armida", was born in Nelahozeves, Bohemia.

Sebastian Fagerlund's opera "Höstsonaten" ("Autumn Sonata"), with a libretto by Gunilla Hemming based on Ingmar Bergman's film, received its world premiere at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki.

Peter Maxwell Davies, British composer and conductor whose operas and music-theatre works include "Taverner", "The Lighthouse", and "Resurrection", was born in Salford, England.

Death of German composer and conductor Richard Strauss, a leading late-Romantic and early-modern opera composer.

Richard Strauss, one of the major opera composers of the late Romantic and early modern eras and composer of "Salome", "Elektra", "Der Rosenkavalier", "Ariadne auf Naxos", and "Die Frau ohne Schatten", died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.