You Never Forget Your First Time
I've discovered that the old adage of 'You never forget your first time' is true for many things. Most recently for me, it's true for Wagner. I wasn't raised in a Wagner household. I'm not even sure my parents were overly enthusiastic opera lovers; they usually preferred theater and the symphony. But when I was eight, old enough for my first grown-up night out on the town, they made the mistake of taking me to see an English translation of Carmen . And I've been hooked on opera ever since. Mostly French and Italian operas, but occasionally there's the odd English opera or German Mozart opera mixed in the bunch. But I've managed to avoid, in sixteen years of attending the opera, going to any German operas. The fat ladies with fake armor and horned hats just couldn't compare with the sweet, slight women who, as Mimi, gave a voice to the meaning of melancholy, or to the Carmens who flirted and smiled their way in ecstasy to their eventual deaths, wi...