A Night At the Opera

I am not an opera fan. I never have been. But when I read about the death yesterday of Italian soprano, Renata Tebaldi, I was reminded of when my mother took me to hear her sing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1970, when I was 12.

My mother was an avid opera fan, with Renata Tebaldi being her favorite singer. She had a large collection of opera records, and listened to it on the radio in the car. Whenever she cleaned the house, she’d put an opera record on, to have music to work by.

And she went to the opera in person as much as possible. She attended local productions, but because she always lived within a reasonable driving distance of New York, she went to the Met regularly as well.

None of us in the family shared her musical tastes. My father was more of a Ray Charles fan, but he took my mother to the opera just to make her happy. But he’d always fall asleep in the middle of it, so my mother went more often with women in the neighborhood, whose husbands were also indifferent to opera.

I became interested in music at a fairly young age, beginning piano lessons at age ten, and joining the band at age eleven. My mother decided that I should attend a professional opera production as part of my musical education, so I was her “date” to the opera at age twelve.

We both dressed formally for this occasion, one of the few times in my life I’ve done so. At twelve, I was 5-5, so I was not ridiculously shorter than my mother’s 5-8.

I can’t say that I really enjoyed it. The music itself wasn’t so bad, but the singing didn’t do a thing for me, though I appreciated the skill that went into it. I quickly grew bored, as the opera was in Italian, and I couldn’t really follow the story.

At the end, there was a standing ovation and my mother had us move closer to the stage to see the singers better. Renata Tebaldi noticed me with my mother. Obviously pleased to see such a young man at the opera, she smiled and waved at us. My mother was thrilled at the recognition and it made me happy to see her happy.

I didn’t really appreciate the experience at the time, but a year later, when she died, I was glad I’d gone with her.