On today's date in 1777, the German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck was "singing the blues" in Paris, when he wrote these lines to a friend:

"I am so much disgusted with music that at present that I would not write one single note for any amount of money… Never has a more terrible and keenly-contested battle been waged than the one I began with my new opera, 'Armide.' The intrigues against my previous operas were no more than little skirmishes in comparison. Enthusiasts tell me, 'Sir, you are fortunate to be enjoying the honor of persecution' and 'every great genius has had the same experience'—I wish them to the devil with their fine speeches!

"Still, the fact is that Yesterday, at the 8th performance of 'Armide,' the hall was so tightly packed that when a man was asked to take off his hat, he replied, 'Come and take it off yourself, I can't move my arms!'—which caused laughter. I have seen people coming out with their hair bedraggled and their clothes drenched as though they had fallen into a stream. Only Frenchman would pay so dearly for such a pleasure."

The German composer Gluck would ultimately triumph in Paris, and could count among his most ardent supporters none other than the French queen, Marie Antoinette—who presumably had a much cooler and certainly less crowded box at the opera.