There’s a fun little book entitled “Great Operatic Disasters,” which chronicles some of the humorous—and some of the harrowing—mishaps that have befallen opera singers and productions over the last few centuries… and September 16th seems to have been a particularly unlucky day in the history of opera:

Consider that on today’s date in 1782, one of the most celebrated opera stars of the 18th century, the Italian castrato Farinelli, died in Bologna after his dismissal from the Spanish court; on September 16th in 1920, the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso made his last records in Camden, New Jersey; and in 1977, opera diva Maria Callas dropped dead of a heart attack in Paris.

And it was on today’s date in 1966 that the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center opened with a gala production of a brand-new opera specially commissioned from the American composer Samuel Barber. Despite an all-star cast headed by Leontyne Price and a lavish stage production designed by Franco Zefferelli—you guessed it—the opera was a flop.

Maybe everyone expected too much, or perhaps the lavish sets were too distracting. Whatever the reason, despite its gorgeous music, even today Barber’s “Anthony and Cleopatra” has never found a lasting place in the repertory of popular American works.

Maybe it was just the operatic jinx of September 16th?