Felix W. Salmaggi (August 12, 1912-March 19, 1990) was elected to The Lambs in 1962 as a Professional member. He was an impresario who produced opera in Brooklyn and worked for Ringling Brothers.
During World War II, Salmaggi was commissioned a U.S. Army captain of an infantry company. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge and the Remagen Bridge campaign. He was discharged as a lieutenant colonel.
With his younger brother, Guido, Salmaggi established the Long Island Opera Company in 1955. In 1956, they were invited to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Brooklyn Opera Company was born. As general manager of the Brooklyn Opera Company for more than 20 years, Salmaggi carried on the tradition of his father, Alfredo Salmaggi, who produced grand opera available at a popular price.
From 1957 to 1967, he worked with the Feld Brothers at the Carter Barron Amphitheater in Washington to produce a week of grand opera every summer from 1957 to 1967.
In the 1960s Salmaggi occasionally expressed his frustration that there were too few outlets for talented opera singers in New York, that he could never get critics to go to Brooklyn and that foundations had not recognized small companies like his.
When he retired in 1983, Salmaggi was an administrator with the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Felix W. Salmaggi died of cancer March 19, 1990, at the Hospice of Northern Virginia in Arlington, Virginia. He was 77 years old and lived in Falls Church, Va. He is interred in Arlington National Cemetery, Section Section 66.