An old memory about the Metropolitan Opera House

I just saw a FaceBook post by a friend about the demolition of the original Metropolitan Opera House.



I recall going to my first opera there and saw Carmen - probably about 1955. (The Opera House was torn down in 1966). Zinka Milanov was the Carmen. After the opera my piano teacher took me backstage to see her.

I wasn't absolutely sure that it was Milanov but I googled my piano teacher and found this: The Community Concert Association presents Zinka Milanov, prima donna soprano, Metropolitan Opera Association ; assisted by Richard Wilens at the piano : [programme]. So they clearly knew each other - and now I am sure it was Milanov. My piano teacher had given up concertizing because he said it was too nerve-racking.

The Multics Panel Session at MIT that I led in May

In late May (May 29, 2014) at the end of the Project MAC 50th anniversary celebration that I wrote about here, there was a Multics reunion with a bunch of technical talks. The last scheduled item was a Panel Session led by me with 4 distinguished members of the Multics team in the late 60s'/early 70's. It was filmed and the video is now available. This was a project / product and follow-on that I worked on from 1967- 1988.

Here is the Agenda for the Multics session.

This 65 minute video is pretty interesting - it's not very technical so non-geeks should have no problem following it. You get a good picture of this project and other related topics and the politics associated with such projects - also a lot of vignettes of the people who worked on it, some of whom have been important figures in the industry.

Click here for the video