Pinafore
Boston Museum / March 22, 1879
(This one isn't mine, it's from http://www.josephhaworth.com/boston_museum.htm - but I love the Boston Museum's history
so much I had to get permission to include it. Please see my review of Old Boston Museum Days.)
The Museum staged the American premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore (1879). The sophisticated satire of these works was new territory for Boston audiences who were more accustomed conventional operettas like The Little Duke. Kate Ryan in her book "Old Boston Museum Days" wrote: "Everyone about the theatre was somewhat doubtful as to the success of "Pinafore". Even Mr. Field was uncertain about the outcome till the song ‘He is an Englishman,’ sung by Joseph Haworth, took the audience by storm and received encore after encore.
(Note: Opening night was Nov. 28, 1878. Within weeks, "Pinafore" was playing on Broadway,
and within months it had swept the entire nation in fervor of "Pinafore"-mania.)