1850
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2 January 1850 Det norske Theater begins operations in Bergen, under the inspiration of Ole Bull. Its first resident playwright is Henrik Ibsen.
3 January 1850 Tsar Nikolay I, having decided to banish the Petrashevists to penal servitude in Siberia, forces them to go through a mock execution. Only at the last minute are they told that their lives are spared. Among the Petrashevists is Fyodor Dostoyevsky. His sentence is commuted to four years at hard labor.
11 January 1850 At a concert in Paris, Louis Moreau Gottschalk (20) plays his new mazurka Fatma for the first time in public.
13 January 1850 The British West African Territories (Gambia, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast) is dissolved.
Sophien-Quadrille op.75 by Johann Strauss (24) is performed for the first time, in the Sophiensaal.
14 January 1850 Juan Bravo Murillo replaces Ramón María Narváez y Campos, duque de Valencia as Prime Minister of Spain.
15 January 1850 British warships arrive at Piraeus to enforce claims brought by two British subjects against the Greek government.
Richard Wagner (36) begins guest conducting the Allgemeine Musikgesellschaft, Zürich with a performance of the Symphony no.7 of Beethoven (†22).
16 January 1850 Frohsinns Spenden op.73, a waltz by Johann Strauss (24), is performed for the first time, in the Sophiensaal.
18 January 1850 Their ultimatum to the Greek government ignored, the British fleet at Piraeus proceed to blockade the port.
19 January 1850 Lava-Ströme op.74, a waltz by Johann Strauss (24), is performed for the first time, in the Sophiensaal, Vienna.
20 January 1850 Anton Rubinstein (20) conducts for the first time when he directs the premieres of his own Symphony no.1 and the overture to his unperformed opera Dmitry Donskoy, in St. Petersburg.
22 January 1850 Louis Spohr (65) falls on the ice in Kassel and receives a concussion. He will not fully recover for weeks.
29 January 1850 Herr von Lüttichau, on behalf of King Friedrich August II of Saxony, presents to Giacomo Meyerbeer (58) the Knight’s Cross of the Royal Saxon Order of Merit, in Dresden.
On the advice of Franz Liszt (38), Richard Wagner (36) leaves Switzerland for Paris.
30 January 1850 Two ships sent by the Royal Navy to find the Franklin expedition depart Plymouth.
31 January 1850 A conservative constitution for the Kingdom of Prussia is adopted. It provides for a small lower house elected by limited suffrage, and a House of Lords under the influence of the Junkers.
1 February 1850 Richard Wagner (36) moves back to Paris from Zürich.
11 February 1850 A farewell dinner is given at the Scarborough Hotel in Leeds for the cathedral organist, Samuel Sebastian Wesley (39). He has accepted a post at Winchester Cathedral. The choir committee presents Wesley with his portrait.
14 February 1850 Introduction and Allegro Appassionato for piano and orchestra by Robert Schumann (39) is performed for the first time, in Leipzig, Clara Schumann (30) at the keyboard. The work is not successful.
19 February 1850 Hector Berlioz (46) conducts the first concert of the Société Philharmonique in Paris. This new cooperative orchestra was founded by 220 shareholders including, Gaspare Spontini (75), Giacomo Meyerbeer (58), Hector Berlioz (46), Franz Liszt (38) and about 200 musicians.
Stephen Foster (23) publishes a song called Gwine to Run All Night. It is popularly known as Camptown Races.
23 February 1850 Afraid that Prussia is trying to dominate Germany, Hannover leaves the Dreikönigsbund.
25 February 1850 Robert Schumann’s (39) Conzertstück op.86 for four horns and orchestra is performed for the first time, on a program with the Overture to Genoveva at an orchestra pension fund concert in Leipzig.
28 February 1850 Anton Bruckner (25) is appointed provisional organist at St. Florian.
Today is the Vienna premiere of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s (58) opera Le prophète. By noon, so large a crowd has gathered at the box office that troops are called out to keep order. See 16 April 1849.
1 March 1850 The British blockade of Piraeus is suspended pending negotiations with Greece.
5 March 1850 The Britannia Bridge (461 m) opens, providing a rail link between the Isle of Anglesey and the Welsh mainland.
7 March 1850 Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts speaks for three hours in the US Senate in support of the Compromise of 1850. It is received with praise everywhere in the country save his native New England.
9 March 1850 Yi Chu succeeds Min Ning as Emperor of China.
President Marzari of Teatro La Fenice, Venice writes to Giuseppe Verdi (36) asking for a new opera.
Timothy Evans is hanged in Pentonville Prison, London for the murder of his wife and daughter. In 1953, John Christie will confess to the crime.
12 March 1850 The Principalities of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen are annexed of Prussia.
By-elections are held in France yesterday and today for the seats of 31 radicals and socialists who were removed by the High Court of Versailles for participation in the rebellion of June 1849. To the surprise of everyone, the radicals and socialists are returned.
14 March 1850 Richard Wagner (36) visits Eugène and Jessie Laussot in Bordeaux.
16 March 1850 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is published in Boston.
Robert Schumann (39) conducts his Genoveva Overture and Clara Schumann (30) plays Robert’s Piano Concerto in Hamburg. It is highly likely that Johannes Brahms (16) attends this concert.
18 March 1850 Three freight transport companies, Livingston, Fargo & Co., Wells & Co., and Butterfield and Wasson are joined to form a new company called American Express.
19 March 1850 Nonet op.38 by Louise Farrenc (45) is performed for the first time, in an all-Farrenc program in the Salle Erard, Paris. 19-year-old Joseph Joachim plays violin in all the works. It is a very successful evening.
21 March 1850 Robert (39) and Clara (30) Schumann perform in a concert with Jenny Lind in Altona.
26 March 1850 Henri Herz (47) reaches San Francisco on his extended tour of the United States.
27 March 1850 Three orchestral works by Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (45) are performed for the first time, in the Hall of the Nobility, St. Petersburg: Capriccio brillante (on the Jota aragonesa), Kamarinskaya and Recuerdos de Castilla. They are all a result of his recent journey to Spain. The audience is so delighted they require the repetition of Kamarinskaya.
Giacomo Meyerbeer’s (58) brother Wilhelm Beer dies in Berlin. “His death is an irreplaceable loss to me in every aspect of my life, in every matter of the heart.”
29 March 1850 The first performance of the new Concert Society of the Russian Imperial Kapella takes place in St. Petersburg. They program largely German composers.
30 March 1850 The paddle-wheeler Royal Adelaide, traveling from Cork to London with about 250-300 on board, goes down off Margate with the loss of all souls.
31 March 1850 Robert Schumann (39) writes to Düsseldorf, accepting the post of director of subscription concerts.
1 April 1850 Charles Gounod (31) signs his first contract to produce an opera, with librettist Emile Augier and Nestor Roquplan, director of the Paris Opéra. It will be Sapho. See 16 April 1851.
2 April 1850 Henri Herz (47) gives his first concert in San Francisco.
3 April 1850 Václav Jan Krtitel Tomásek dies in Prague, aged 75 years, eleven months and 17 days. His mortal remains will be buried in the cemetery of Prague-Kosire.
4 April 1850 The City of Los Angeles is incorporated.
12 April 1850 Pope Pius IX reenters Rome and abolishes the constitution.
15 April 1850 San Francisco is incorporated as a city.
16 April 1850 Richard Wagner (36) writes from Montmorency to his wife Minna, informing her of his decision to separate from her. He is presently engaged in a liaison with Jessie Laussot, the English wife of a Bordeaux wine merchant.
A battalion of light infantry marches across a bridge over the Maine at Angers. The bridge collapses. 200 people are killed.
19 April 1850 In the Clayton-Bulwer agreement, signed today in Washington, Great Britain and the United States agree not to obtain exclusive control of a Central American canal. No Central Americans have been consulted about the pact.
20 April 1850 Le songe d’une nuit d’été, an opéra comique by Ambroise Thomas (38) to words of Rosier and de Leuven, is performed for the first time, at the Théâtre des Nouveautés, Paris.
21 April 1850 The Piano Concerto no.1 in e minor by Anton Rubinstein (20) is performed completely for the first time, in the Hall of the Nobility, Moscow, the composer at the keyboard.
23 April 1850 William Wordsworth dies in Grasmere, Westmorland at the age of 80.
John Glanton and his gang of professional scalphunters are surrounded and killed by Yumas (Yuma County, Arizona). Over the last two years, Glanton’s gang killed 1,000 Indians earning $100,000 in selling scalps to the Mexican government. Since they also sell Mexican and anglo scalps as Indian, the United States posted a $75,000 reward for their capture. The Yumas receive no reward but Fort Yuma is named in their honor.
25 April 1850 The British resume their blockade of Piraeus to extract compensation for losses suffered by two British subjects in Greece. It was suspended 1 March. They also place an embargo on all Greek shipping.
26 April 1850 The Greek government agrees to British demands for compensation.
27 April 1850 Hector Berlioz (46) is named head librarian at the Paris Conservatoire.
1 May 1850 Albert Lortzing (48) takes up duties as Kapellmeister at the Friedrich-Wilhelmstädtisches Theater, Berlin.
7 May 1850 Fromental Halévy (50) and his family arrive in London to produce La tempesta.
The Swiss Federal Assembly passes the Federal Coinage Act which unifies all existing cantonal monetary systems in one currency, the Swiss Franc.
10 May 1850 In an attempt to stop the growing influence of Prussia, Felix, Fürst zu Schwarzenberg oversees the meeting of the pre-1848 German Diet an Frankfurt.
12 May 1850 Fromental Halévy (50), his wife and daughters, call on the former King Louis-Philippe at Claremont, where he is a guest of Queen Victoria. He brings a newly published book from his friend Jules Janin to the King, who receives them lying down, in poor health.
17 May 1850 The new Friedrich-Wilhelmstädtisches Theater opens in Berlin, under Kapellmeister Albert Lortzing (48).
19 May 1850 About 1,000 filibusters from the southern United States, sailing from New Orleans, land at Cárdenas, Cuba and take over the town. When Spanish troops intervene, they take to sea.
22 May 1850 A retired non-commissioned officer named Maximilian Sefeloge attempts to kill King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia at a railroad station in Berlin. The king is shot in the arm but will survive. Sefeloge will be committed to a lunatic asylum.
23 May 1850 USS Advance and USS Rescue depart New York on a mission to search for the missing Franklin expedition.
25 May 1850 Obaysch arrives at the London Zoo from Africa. He is the first hippopotamus seen in Europe since the Roman Empire.
31 May 1850 A new law in France institutes a residency requirement for voting, thus disenfranchising many workers and abolishing universal male suffrage.
1 June 1850 Postage stamps are issued for the first time, in Austria.
8 June 1850 La tempestà, an opéra italien by Fromental Halévy (51) to words of Giannone and Scribe after Shakespeare, is performed for the first time, at Her Majesty’s Theatre, London. The public is ecstatic, giving solo bows for every number. The press, unanimous in their praise of the production, is cautious about the work itself.
16 June 1850 Incidental music to the play Eine Berliner Grisette by Albert Lortzing (48) is performed for the first time, in Berlin.
17 June 1850 The steamer GP Griffith with about 300 aboard (mostly immigrants from northern Europe) catches fire in Lake Erie, 30 km east of Cleveland. 30-40 survive.
18 June 1850 The Caisse de Retraite pour la Vieillesse is instituted by law in France. It is intended as old age insurance for working people who do not have the resources to interest an insurance company.
19 June 1850 Margaret Fuller dies at the age of 50 when the ship on which she is a passenger strikes a sandbar and goes down off Fire Island, New York.
25 June 1850 Genoveva, an opera by Robert Schumann (40) to words of Reinick after Tieck and Hebbel, is performed for the first time, in Leipzig, directed by the composer. The work is a moderate success with the audience.
Wiener Garnison-Marsch op.77 by Johann Strauss (24) is performed for the first time, in the Volksgarten, Vienna.
26 June 1850 E foriera la Pace ai mortale, a hymn by Gioachino Rossini (58) to words of Arcangeli after Bacchilde, is performed for the first time.
27 June 1850 As she rides in an open carriage near Cambridge House, Queen Victoria is struck on the face by an ex-cavalry officer named Robert Pate using his cane. Pate is subdued by the crowd. He will be sentenced to seven years exile. The Queen suffers bruises but no permanent damage.
28 June 1850 Fest-Hymne W.92 for male chorus and orchestra by Peter Cornelius (25) to words of Rellstab is performed for the first time, in a festival concert at the Royal Opera House, Berlin on the recovery of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV from an attempted assassination.
2 July 1850 Peace is signed between Prussia and Denmark in Berlin. Denmark withdraws from Schleswig-Holstein.
Joseph, Baron Linden replaces Johannes von Schlayer as Prime Minister of Württemberg.
Benjamin I. Lane of Cambridge, Massachusetts receives a US patent for a Pneumatic Life Preserver. It is a gas mask with its own breathing apparatus.
3 July 1850 After escaping an irate husband bent on his death, and breaking up with his lover, Jessie Laussot, Richard Wagner (37) returns to his “Villa Rienzi” and his wife Minna in Zürich.
6 July 1850 Maxing-Tänze op.79, a waltz by Johann Strauss, (24) is performed for the first time, in Villa Maxing.
8 July 1850 Heiligenstädter Rendezvous-Polka op.78 by Johann Strauss (24) is performed for the first time in Kugler.
9 July 1850 Siyyid ‘Ali-Muhammad, the Báb, is executed by firing squad in Tabriz.
President Zachary Taylor of the United States dies of natural causes in Washington and is succeeded by Millard Fillmore.
11 July 1850 The Patriarch of Constantinople recognizes the 1833 declaration of autocephaly by the Greek Orthodox Church.
14 July 1850 Giacomo Meyerbeer (58) receives a letter telling him that he has been elected a doctorate of philosophy and the liberal arts from the University of Jena. A diploma accompanies the letter.
16 July 1850 Luisen Sympathie-Klänge op.81, a waltz by Johann Strauss (24), is performed for the first time, in the Volksgarten, Vienna.
17 July 1850 A professional photographer named John Adams Whipple attaches a daguerreotype plate to the eyepiece of a 38 cm telescope at Harvard Observatory, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He photographs the star Vega, the first star other than the Sun to be photographed.
20 July 1850 A treaty is signed in Athens by the Greek foreign minister and a representative of Great Britain settling the compensation affair which brought a British blockade in January.
Giralda, ou La nouvelle Psyché, an opera by Adolphe Adam (46) to words of Scribe, is performed for the first time, at the Opéra-Comique, Paris.
22 July 1850 Stephen Foster (24) marries Jane Denny MacDowell, daughter of a physician, now deceased, in Trinity Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh.
Heski Holki Polka op.80 by Johann Strauss (24) is performed for the first time, in the Sperl Ballroom, Vienna.
28 July 1850 Johannis-Käferln op.82, a waltz by Johann Strauss (24), is performed for the first time, in Casino Zögernitz, Vienna.
1 August 1850 Russia claims Sakhalin Island.
2 August 1850 In the London Convention, Great Britain, France, Russia, Sweden and Denmark agree to maintain the integrity of Denmark.
5 August 1850 The British Parliament passes the Australia Constitution Act. Victoria is separated from New South Wales. South Australia and Tasmania are granted representative government.
Herman Melville meets Nathaniel Hawthorne for the first time, on Monument Mountain in the Berkshires.
7 August 1850 The East Coast Route railway from London to Edinburgh and Glasgow is completed.
Louis Moreau Gottschalk (21) plays an extremely successful concert at the Casino in Geneva.
10 August 1850 Samuel Sebastian Wesley (39) becomes professor of organ at the Royal Academy of Music.
13 August 1850 Captain GI Nevelskoy plants the Russian flag and establishes Nikolayevski Post at the mouth of the Amur River.
14 August 1850 Johannes Brahms (17) meets the young Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi in Hamburg.
17 August 1850 Denmark sells its Gold Coast possessions to Great Britain.
José de San Martín dies in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France at the age of 72.
18 August 1850 Honoré de Balzac dies in Paris at the age of 51.
Bonvivant-Quadrille op.86 by Johann Strauss (24) is performed for the first time, in the Volksgarten, Vienna.
22 August 1850 Nikolaus Lenau dies in Oberdöbling, near Vienna, at the age of 47.
24 August 1850 Two works by Franz Liszt (38) are performed for the first time, conducted by the composer in Weimar: Chöre zu Herders Entfeisselten Prometheus and the overture Prometheus. Prometheus will be revised into a symphonic poem. See 18 October 1855.
Richard Wagner (37) completes his essay Das Judenthum in Musik. It will be published in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik under the pseudonym of K. Freigedank.
25 August 1850 Franz Liszt’s (38) Festchor zur Enthüllung des Herder-Denkmalls in Weimar to words of Schöll is performed for the first time, in Weimar.
Sechs Gedichte for voice and piano by Robert Schumann (40) to words of Lenau are performed for the first time, in Dresden before a small group of friends gathering to wish farewell to the Schumanns as they leave for Düsseldorf. The composer believed that the poet is dead so he added a Requiem at the end to a Latin poem attributed to Heloise. This day, however, news reaches Schumann of the death of Lenau three days ago.
26 August 1850 19:30 The open dress rehearsal in Weimar for Lohengrin is just about to begin when Eduard Genast announces to the audience that a fire has broken out in the nearby penitentiary. The theatre is evacuated.
Louis-Philippe Orléans, former King of the French, dies in England where he was granted sanctuary by Queen Victoria.
28 August 1850 On the 100th anniversary of the birth of Goethe, Lohengrin, a romantische Oper by Richard Wagner (37) to his own words, is performed for the first time, at the Weimar Hoftheater directed by Franz Liszt (38). The theatre is full of artistic luminaries including Robert Franz (35), Joseph Joachim and Hans von Bülow. The composer is not present as he is a wanted man in Germany.
30 August 1850 Honolulu is incorporated as a city.
1 September 1850 The Schumann family departs Dresden for Robert's (40) new post in Düsseldorf.
2 September 1850 The Diet of the German Confederation meets for the first time since July, 1848.
The Schumann family reaches Düsseldorf from Dresden. They are greeted by a welcoming committee headed by Ferdinand Hiller. Their hotel rooms are decorated with flowers and they are treated to music by the local choral society.
3 September 1850 The Neue Zeitschrift für Musik publishes the first of two installments of Das Judenthum in Musik by Richard Wagner (37).
In St. Petersburg to be enrolled in the School of Jurisprudence, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (10) is taken by his mother to see a performance of A Life for the Tsar by Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (46). It will have a lasting effect on his life and work.
6 September 1850 The Neue Zeitschrift für Musik publishes the second of two installments of Das Judenthum in Musik by Richard Wagner (37).
7 September 1850 Five days after his arrival in Düsseldorf, Robert Schumann (40) is celebrated with a concert consisting entirely of his own works.
8 September 1850 Stephen (24) and Jane Foster return from their honeymoon and settle into the Foster family home in Pittsburgh.
9 September 1850 The Compromise of 1850 is passed by the United States Congress. California is admitted as the 31st state and a free state. Utah and New Mexico are created territories without a decision on slavery. Jury trials for fugitive slaves are abolished and slavery is abolished in the District of Columbia.
11 September 1850 Jenny Lind gives her first concert in the United States, at Castle Garden, New York City managed by Phineas T. Barnum.
13 September 1850 Johann Coaz, along with Jon and Lorenze Ragut Tscharner (all Swiss), reach the summit of Piz Bernina (4,049 m) in eastern Switzerland.
14 September 1850 In a letter to E.B. Kietz, Richard Wagner (37) first mentions the idea of a festival theatre built to his specifications.
16 September 1850 Heimaths-Kinder op.85, a waltz by Johann Strauss (24), is performed for the first time, in the Sperl Ballroom, Vienna.
17 September 1850 Elector Friedrich Wilhelm II of Hesse requests military aid from the German Confederation to put down unrest between himself and the landed classes.
18 September 1850 The United States Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Law. Any slave who escapes to a state where slavery is outlawed must be returned to their owner.
21 September 1850 Incidental music to Guillard’s comédie Un mariage sous la Régence by Jacques Offenbach (31) is performed for the first time, at the Comédie-Française, Paris.
22 September 1850 A pogrom takes place in New York City as 500 gentiles raid a Jewish-occupied tenement on Yom Kippur, vandalizing, beating and robbing.
26 September 1850 Restrictions are set on the French press by President Louis Napoléon Bonaparte.
28 September 1850 By an act of Congress, flogging is henceforth prohibited on vessels of the United States Navy.
1 October 1850 Sir Charles Fitzroy grants royal assent to an act creating the University of Sydney, the first university in Australia.
5 October 1850 Royal Assent is given to the separation of Victoria from New South Wales, Australia.
6 October 1850 Ottinger Reiter-Marsch op.83 by Johann Strauss (24) is performed for the first time, in the Volksgarten, Vienna.
13 October 1850 Joseph Joachim takes up duties as Konzertmeister in the Weimar orchestra conducted by Franz Liszt (38).
17 October 1850 Exactly one year to the day after his death, a monument is unveiled at the grave of Frédéric Chopin. A small amount of Polish earth is brought for the occasion and sprinkled over the final resting place.
22 October 1850 Sara la Baigneuse for three choruses and orchestra by Hector Berlioz (46) to words of Hugo is performed for the first time, in Salle Ste.-Cécile, Paris. See 7 November 1834 and 13 December 1840.
24 October 1850 Robert Schumann (40) conducts his first concert in Düsseldorf. It features Clara Schumann (31) as soloist in Mendelssohn’s (†2) g minor concerto.
1 November 1850 Troops of the German Confederation enter the Electorate of Hesse to put down a revolt of the landed classes against Elector Friedrich Wilhelm II. Prussia opposes the move, in opposition to Austria.
Giacomo Meyerbeer (59) is appointed a Knight of the Austrian Order of Franz Joseph.
Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is published. It is her first book under her own name and includes Sonnets from the Portuguese.
6 November 1850 Friedrich Wilhelm, Count of Brandenburg, son of King Friedrich Wilhelm II and Prime Minister of Prussia, dies suddenly in Berlin.
This night, Gottfried Kinkel, husband of Johanna Kinkel (40), escapes from Spandau Prison in Berlin. With Carl Schurz he flees to Rostock and thence to Britain.
11 November 1850 Eight years after being hired at the Conservatoire, Louise Farrenc (46) writes to director Daniel Auber (68) that her salary be raised to those faculty of equal rank and experience. This appeal, her second, will be accepted.
12 November 1850 At a Société Philharmonique performance at the Salle Ste.-Cécile, Hector Berlioz (46) conducts L’Adieu des bergers. He says that he found the manuscript in a cupboard at the Ste.-Chapelle and that it was composed by “Pierre Ducré, master of the music to Sainte-Chapelle, 1679.” It was composed by Berlioz and will become part of his La fuite en Egypte.
15 November 1850 David Copperfield by Charles Dickens is published in book form. It has already been serialized.
16 November 1850 Stiffelio, an opera by Giuseppe Verdi (37) to words of Piave after Souvestre and Bourgeois, is performed for the first time, at the Teatro Civico Grande, Trieste, the composer directing. The audience is warm. The critics remark that Verdi did the best he could in the face of emasculating censorship. See 19 November 1850.
17 November 1850 String Quartet D.956 by Franz Schubert is performed publicly for the first time, at the Musikverein, Vienna, two days before the 22nd anniversary of the composer’s death.
19 November 1850 Domenico Ronzani, the director of Teatro Civico Grande, Trieste, is enjoined by the president of the theatre to warn singers to use only the words of Giuseppe Verdi’s (37) Stiffelio printed in the approved libretto or dire consequences will result. The work has been heavily censored.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson becomes Poet Laureate of Great Britain, succeeding William Wordsworth.
20 November 1850 Incidental music to Gottschall’s play Ferdinand Schill by Albert Lortzing (49) is performed for the first time, in Berlin.
21 November 1850 Robert Schumann’s (40) Requiem für Mignon for solo voices, chorus and orchestra to words of Goethe is performed for the first time, in Düsseldorf.
22 November 1850 Messe de Saint-Cecile for solo voices, chours and orchetra by Adolphe Adam (47) is performed for the first time.
29 November 1850 In the agreement of Olmütz (Olomuc), Prussia accepts the revival of the German Confederation under the domination of Austria and abandons its German Union project.
1 December 1850 The president of Teatro La Fenice, Venice forwards to Giuseppe Verdi (37) and Francesco Maria Piave the Austrian governor’s “profound regret that the poet Piave and the celebrated Maestro Verdi have not chosen some other field to display their talents than the revolting immorality and obscene triviality forming the story of the libretto Le Maledizione (Rigoletto), submitted to us for eventual performance at La Fenice.”
5 December 1850 Incidental music to the farce Ein nachmittag in Moabit by Albert Lortzing (49) is performed for the first time, in Berlin.
6 December 1850 Hermann von Helmholz announces his invention of the ophthalmoscope to the Berlin Physical Society.
L’enfant prodigue, an opéra by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (68) to words of Scribe, is performed for the first time, at the Paris Opéra.
8 December 1850 String Quartet D.887 by Franz Schubert (†22) is performed completely for the first time, at the Musikverein, Vienna. See 26 March 1828.
14 December 1850 Giuseppe Verdi (37) writes protesting the changes demanded in Rigoletto by the Austrian governor of Venice.
19 December 1850 Otto Theodor, Baron von Manteuffel replaces Friedrich Wilhelm, Count of Brandenburg as Prime Minister of Prussia.
Incidental music to Augier’s comédie en vers Le Joueur de flûte by Jacques Offenbach (31) is performed for the first time, at the Comédie-Française, Paris.
21 December 1850 In answer to an Austrian complaint, US Secretary of State Daniel Webster informs Chevalier Hulsemann, Austrian charge d’affaires in Washington, that the United States was proud to have supported the Hungarian Republic.
23 December 1850 A convention of the German states convenes in Dresden and restores the pre-1848 order, thus abandoning all reform.
28 December 1850 A fire destroys over 2,000 structures in the city of Rangoon.
La dame de pique, an opéra comique by Fromental Halévy (51) to words of Scribe, is performed for the first time, at the Théâtre Favart, Paris. It is a success.
30 December 1850 Giuseppe Verdi (37), Francesco Maria Piave, and Guglielmo Brenna, the secretary of Teatro La Fenice, meet at Busseto and sign a document agreeing to certain changes in the libretto of Le Maledizione (Rigoletto) which will allow its production. Verdi and Piave mostly get their way.
31 December 1850 Hirten-Spiele op.89, a waltz by Johann Strauss (25), is performed for the first time, in the Sperl Ballroom, Vienna.
©2004-2016 Paul Scharfenberger
10 June 2016
Last Updated (Friday, 10 June 2016 04:33)