Portal:Opera/DYK/7

...that when it was shown at the Metropolitan Opera, Diana von Solange by Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (pictured), was so poorly received that three hundred people signed a petition demanding that it be removed from the repertory?
...that La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina by Francesca Caccini first performed in Warsaw in 1628, was the first opera by a woman composer?
...that in the 1720s and 1730s, at the height of the craze for castrato singers, it has been estimated that up to 4000 boys were castrated annually?

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