October 18 — On This Day in Opera

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart returned to Milan while composing "Mitridate, re di Ponto" and reported that his fingers ached from writing large amounts of recitative for the opera.

Simone Mayr’s two-act farsa "Che originali, o Il trionfo della musica", with a libretto by Gaetano Rossi, received its first performance at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice.

Gaetano Donizetti’s "Buondelmonte", created by adapting music from the suppressed "Maria Stuarda" to a different plot with new recitatives and other changes, received its first performance in Naples.

French composer Charles Gounod, whose operas include "Faust" and "Roméo et Juliette", died in Saint-Cloud.

Benjamin Britten’s "Death in Venice" received its United States premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

American operatic baritone Barry McDaniel was born in Lyndon, Kansas; he later became a longtime member of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and was particularly admired in Mozart, Richard Strauss and contemporary opera.

Birth of American operatic soprano Camilla Williams (1919–2012) — one of the pioneering Black sopranos in U.S. opera houses.

French operatic soprano Janine Micheau, noted especially for lyric and coloratura roles in the French repertoire, died in Paris.

Slovak coloratura soprano Edita Gruberová, renowned for roles including the Queen of the Night, Zerbinetta, Lucia and major bel canto heroines, died in Zurich.