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From today's featured article

Carmen is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet, first performed on 3 March 1875. It was not at first particularly successful and Bizet knew nothing of its later success as he died before its initial run was concluded. The opera tells the story of the downfall of Don José, a naive soldier seduced by the fiery gypsy Carmen (first played by Célestine Galli-Marié, pictured in costume). José abandons his childhood sweetheart and deserts from his military duties, yet loses Carmen's love to the glamorous toreador Escamillo after which José kills her in a jealous rage. The depictions of proletarian life, immorality and lawlessness, and the tragic outcome, broke new ground in French opera, and after the premiere most reviews were critical. Carmen initially gained its reputation outside France, and was not revived in Paris until 1883; thereafter it rapidly acquired celebrity at home and abroad, and continues to be one of the most frequently performed operas. The music of Carmen has been widely acclaimed for its brilliance of melody, harmony, atmosphere and orchestration, and for the skill with which Bizet represented musically the emotions and suffering of his characters. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's newest content:

... that the pink and black sea cucumber (pictured) is eaten as "bêche-de-mer" in China and Indonesia?

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... that Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom was the first unified musical setting of the Divine Liturgy?

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... that the telescoping effect occurs when people perceive recent events as being more remote than they are and distant events as being more recent than they are?

... that the only sides that have beaten England in women's Test cricket are Australia and India?

... that removal of "doggers" has caused much of Warren Hill to slip away?

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In the news

More than 70 people are killed in a building collapse in Thane, India.

American Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert (pictured in 1970) dies at age 70.

More than 50 people die in floods resulting from record-breaking rainfall in La Plata and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Amid rising tensions, North Korea closes off entry to the Kaesŏng Industrial Region and restarts a plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon.

The United Nations General Assembly adopts the Arms Trade Treaty to limit the international trade of weapons.

India's Supreme Court denies patent protection for a modified version of the cancer drug imatinib.

Recent deaths: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

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On this day...

April 6: Easter Saturday (Western Christianity, 2013)

1652 – Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck (pictured) established the first permanent European settlement in South Africa at what eventually became known as Cape Town.

1793 – French Revolution: The Committee of Public Safety was established, and would become the de facto executive government during the forthcoming Reign of Terror.

1808 – John Jacob Astor founded the American Fur Company, the profits from which would make him the United States' first multi-millionaire.

1893 – The Salt Lake Temple, the largest of more than 140 temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was dedicated in Salt Lake City.

2010 – Rebels from the Communist Party of India (Maoist) ambushed a Central Reserve Police Force convoy in Dantewada district, India, killing 76 CRPF officers.

More anniversaries: April 5 – April 6 – April 7

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Today's featured picture

The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences publishes and circulates different scientific works, encyclopedias, dictionaries and journals, and runs its own publishing house. Established in 1869, the academy only received its own headquarters – designed by Hermann Mayer – in 1893.

Photograph: Plamen Agov

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