The Academy has been in nonstop use since 1857, facilitating numerous world-well known entertainers, conductors and writers, and a critical number of American debuts of works in the standard operatic and established collection. Noted musical dramas that had their American debuts there incorporate Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, Gounod's Faust, and Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. In 1916, Leopold Stokowski led the Philadelphia Orchestra in the American debut of Mahler's Eighth Symphony .