Cool. Let me know if I’m one of the winners; I’ll need to buy a suitable recording device.
Of course, if it’s a crosstime journey, I guess I could always buy it when I get back…
You clearly have not thought through the mechanics of time-travel. You have to acquire the recording device in your personal timeline before you take the trip, even though you’ll be using it before you were born.
I want to see either the HMS Pinafore, the Pirates of Penzance, or the 1812 Overture with real cannons
Off the top of my head:
Olivier playing: Hamlet; Becket; Oedipus.
Peter Pan with Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard.
The performances of the Compass Players and their immediate successor, the earliest Second City. Especially Severn Darden’s “Metaphysics Lecture”.
The premiere of Handel’s Messiah.
Beethoven playing his well-known piano sonatas: Moonlight, Pathetique, Appassionata, Hammerklavier.
The premiere of Beethoven’s 9th.
The premiere of the ballet of “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” with Nijinsky.
One of Franz Liszt’s recitals.
I’d give my left heart to take the Wayback machine to Paris, May 29, 1913 to see the premiere performance of La Sacre Du Printemps. For classical music, Day One of twentieth century.
It isn’t a theatrical production in the sense the OP intended, but it was in a theatre and included costumed ballet dancers on stage.
As usual, I missed the edit window. Just wanted to mention that I posted above before reading any of the other replies. I’m gratified to see that I’m not the only one with the same wish.
I think I’d rather be in the audience for King Lear at the Globe than any of the other Shakespeares mentioned so far (other than Love’s Labour’s Won). The story the audience knew had a happy ending where Lear and Cordelia won the last battle - I would love to be standing in the crowd for the first performance ever when he comes out carrying her body.
I now suspect the riot was caused by the fact that the theater was entirely packed with time-traveling Dopers.
This one’s easy for me.
The Moscow Art Theatre premiere of The Seagull, with Stanislavski playing Trigorin. 29 December, 1898.
The dawn of modern acting.
Since JCS was banned in the Soviet USSR, a couple of clever playrights put “correct” lyrics to the tunes and called it “Rock & Roll at Dawn.”
I would fucking kill to see that show and collect everything humanly possible from it.
Now you know how to negotiate with a Rhymer!
I’ll be sending a continua buggy and driver over to pick you up, and I’ll even pay for your non-theatre amusement while you’re in Russia. In return you’ll just have to deliver a small unmarked package to Stephen Hawking. He knows too much.
And, um, don’t drop the package.
I’ll be waiting at my door in my best clothes! And Thanks!
Judy Garland’s Carnegie Hall concert.
Streisand and Garland on the latter’s tv show.
Sondheim’s *Follies, *in concert.
Anything with Sarah Bernhardt or Theda Bara.
Carol (Burnett) and Julie (Andrews) at Carnegie Hall.
The Beatles, in Shea Stadium.
Anything with Noel Coward.
Premier of *Le sacre du printemps *or Beethoven’s Ninth.
Any contemporary performance of a Rossini opera (to settle the question of whether they used vibrato).
A live perforance of a “castrato.”
Streisand in *Funny Girl. *I saw it, and would give just about anything to see it again.
You know I love Theda, but even she would have admitted that her brief theatrical career was not worth wasting time travel on. Though yes, I may join you for a matinee of The Blue Flame, as bad as it was.
Perhaps the premier of The King in Yellow in Paris on February 2nd, 1895? Unfortunately, I can only stay for the first act, but please don’t let me interfere with your viewing pleasure.
Allegri’s “Miserere mei, Deus” in the Tenebrae service in the Sistine Chapel on Good Friday, say 1635. Bringing a decent audio system just to gazump Mozart, Skald wouldn’t give a toss about excommunication.
That WAS you! I knew it.
How about seeing Streisand and Gould in “I Can Get It For You Wholesale”?
Well - I’m not sure I really care which production I see - but I’d love to see something at the Moulin Rouge. Possibly the 26 October 1890 production of Circassiens et Circassiennes, with the Prince of Wales, and future Edward VII, in attendance. And of course, a second for the original cast of West Side Story. Finally, if we stretch the definition ever so slightly - I’d love to have been present on October 20, 1938 for the Mercury Theatre production of War of the Worlds.
No Doper wants to see the Grand Guignol? Same on you!