Asked My Mom…
Since Opera has literally been Mom’s everything since childhood, I asked her if she knew how she heard Opera for the first time: radio broadcast, 78-RPM record played at home, live performance? After much thinking, she’s pretty sure it was in 1949 (when she was 10) while watching a film with her mother in Long Beach, CA.
The operas were Rigoletto (by Verdi), La Traviata (by Verdi), and Manon Lescaut (by Puccini).
There’s always an early milestone, a pivotal juncture, that flips your switch.
