Returning from exile, Cuban dance band leader Claudio Brindis de Salas is imprisoned for two years by the island's authorities.
Giuseppe Verdi wishes to replace soprano Eugenia Tadolini as Lady Macbeth for the first Naples performance of his opera Macbeth on the grounds that her voice and appearance are too beautiful. This year she creates two new rôles, Giovanna in Carlo Boniforti's Giovanna di Fiandra (February 8 at La Scala, Milan) and Paolina in Donizetti's Poliuto (November 30 at the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples) and makes her London debut as a lead singer in the title role of Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix opposite Sims Reeves at Her Majesty's Theatre (March).