November 28 — On This Day in Opera

On 1651-11-28, Francesco Cavalli's opera "La Calisto" received its premiere at the Teatro Sant'Apollinare in Venice.

On 1822-11-28, Étienne Méhul's posthumous opera "Valentine de Milan" premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, completed by his nephew Joseph Daussoigne-Méhul.

On 1843-11-28, Giovanni Pacini's opera "Medea" (Medea: melodramma tragico in tre atti) premiered at the Real Teatro Carolino in Palermo.

On 1877-11-28, Emmanuel Chabrier's opéra bouffe "L'étoile" received its world premiere at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Paris.

On 1896-11-28 (Julian calendar; 1896-12-10 Gregorian), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's revised and re-orchestrated version of Mussorgsky's opera "Boris Godunov" was premiered in the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.

On 1930-11-28, the ground-breaking ceremony for the Yerevan Opera Theatre (Armenian National Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet) took place during celebrations of the 10th anniversary of Soviet Armenia.

On 1983-11-28, Olivier Messiaen's only opera "Saint François d'Assise" received its first performance at the Paris Opéra, Palais Garnier, conducted by Seiji Ozawa.

On 2021-11-28, Peter Eötvös's opera "Sleepless" received its world premiere at Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin.

On 1872-11-28, American lyric coloratura soprano Suzanne Adams was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

On 1888-11-28, Russian soprano Oda Slobodskaya (who later became a British citizen) was born in Vilno, then in the Russian Empire (now Vilnius, Lithuania).

On 1904-11-28, American lyric soprano Helen Jepson, later a leading singer at the Metropolitan Opera, was born in Titusville, Pennsylvania.

On 1907-11-28, Italian operatic baritone and vocal pedagogue Enrico Delle Sedie died in La Garenne-Colombes, France.

On 1948-11-28, Romanian operatic soprano Mariana Nicolesco was born in Găujani, Giurgiu County, Romania.

On 2012-11-28, Swiss-based soprano of American birth Gloria Davy, noted as the first Black artist to sing Verdi's Aida at the Metropolitan Opera, died in Geneva at the age of 81.