My first-born, Reid, asked me if I knew how I’d heard Opera for the first time: radio broadcast, 78-RPM record played by my Mother at home, or a live performance? After much thinking, I’m pretty sure it was in 1949, when I was 10, while watching a film with my Mother, Dr. Pearl Marie Sampson. The operas were Rigoletto by Verdi, La Traviata by Verdi, and Manon Lescaut by Puccini.
As Reid says, “there’s always an early milestone, a pivotal juncture, that flips your switch.”