Georg Solti (1912–1997) was an orchestral and operatic conductor, best
known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt and
London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra. In the 1930s, he was a répétiteur at the Hungarian State
Opera and worked at the Salzburg Festival for Arturo Toscanini. His
career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis. After conducting a
season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House he found
refuge in Switzerland, where he remained during the Second World War.
After the war, he was appointed musical director of the Bavarian State
Opera in 1946, the Frankfurt Opera in 1952, and the Covent Garden Opera
Company in London in 1961. In 1969 Solti was appointed music director of
the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a post he held for 22 years. He restored
the orchestra's reputation after it had been in decline for most of the
previous decade. Known in his early years for the intensity of his music
making, Solti was widely considered to have mellowed as a conductor in
later years. He recorded many works two or three times at various stages
of his career, and was a prolific recording artist, making more than 250
recordings, including 45 complete opera sets. The most famous of his
recordings is probably Decca's complete set of Wagner's Der Ring des
Nibelungen, made between 1958 and 1965.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Solti>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1139:
Prince Afonso Henriques led Portuguese troops to victory over
the Almoravid Moors at the Battle of Ourique.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ourique>
1609:
The crew of British sailing ship Sea Venture grounded her on
the reefs of Bermuda, which is widely believed to have inspired
Shakepeare's The Tempest.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Venture>
1814:
War of 1812: In present-day Niagara Falls, Ontario, the United
States and Great Britain engaged in one of the deadliest battles ever
fought on Canadian soil.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lundy%27s_Lane>
1909:
French aviator Louis Blériot crossed the English Channel in a
heavier-than-air flying machine, flying from near Calais, France, to
Dover, England.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Bl%C3%A9riot>
1978:
Louise Brown, the world's first baby conceived through in vitro
fertilisation, was born in Oldham, England.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_fertilisation>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
eviscerate:
1. (transitive) To disembowel, to remove the viscera.
2. (transitive) To destroy or make ineffectual or meaningless.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eviscerate>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and
they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They
know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our
freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the
good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and
gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the
insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes
freedom, tolerance, and equity.
--Eric Hoffer
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer>