Portal:Opera/DYK/23

...that following the London premiere of Fabio Campana's opera Esmeralda in 1870 (Adelina Patti pictured in the title role), The Saturday Review pronounced it "irredeemably bad"?"
...that Patience and Sarah has been called the first lesbian opera?
...that the two leading sopranos in the 1711 world premiere of Handel's Rinaldo, Isabella Girardeau and Elisabetta Pilotti-Schiavonetti, were bitter rivals?

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