September 16

1844 Paul Taffanel – French composer, flutist, and conductor (d.1908); founder of the French Flute School that dominated much of flute composition and performance during the 20th century.
1887 Nadia Boulanger – French composer and influential teacher (d.1979); her pupils included a number of famous American composers from Aaron Copland to Philip Glass. 1966 opening of the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center in New York with the world premiere of Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra, commissioned for the occasion; no expense was spared: Franco Zeffirelli was the stage director, Thomas Schippers the conductor; stage design and costumes were elaborate; the cast enormous and it was all too much; years later, critic Donal Henahan wrote “The night has gone down in the annals of opera as a landmark of vulgarity and staging excess. Mr. Barber’s score, as we discovered from subsequent exposure to revised excerpts in concert and on records, was to a great extent an innocent victim of the overall fiasco."       
1976 Elina Garanca – Latvian mezzo-soprano (49 years old); at the Metropolitan Opera, has sung Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville and the title role in Bizet's Carmen; her husband is conductor Karel Mark Chichon.