Carnegie Hall’s First Opening Night: Tchaikovsky Pulls a Fast One? As far uptown as Carnegie Hall was back in 1891, it wasn’t too far to draw the society crowd to the very first opening night on May 5. The hall was packed with the movers and shakers of the time: Rockefellers and Fricks (and Carnegies, of course), former mayors and current US senators. All of them were there to see the big musi…