I was already a budding fan of opera when I was a scrawny high schooler, thanks to the efforts of my first voice teacher, Cherie Carl,  who helped unlock the potential of my voice and made me realize that opera might very well be a big part of my musical destiny.  She gave me my first opera aria to sing (“Non piu andrai” from The Marriage of Figaro ) and was with me when I saw my first opera onstage,  Douglas Moore’s The Ballad of Baby Doe at Simpson College.  I’d never experienced anything like it before,  and I knew from that point on that opera would figure in my future somehow …… perhaps as a singer, but definitely as a fan.

My love of opera deepened considerably once I got to Luther College – although not as much from the school or my schooling as from the experience of living for four years with the smartest and most fervent opera fan I know, my best friend Marshall Anderson, who even at the tender age of 18 had already been an ardent opera fan for years.   It was by listening with Marshall to a couple of his favorite opera recordings – Lucia di Lammermoor with Joan Sutherland and Madama Butterfly with Mirella Freni –  that I first realized how thrilling opera is when delivered by its greatest singers at the height of their powers.  There’s nothing like it.

But only in retrospect have I come to understand the other way in which my eyes were newly opened to the riches that opera had to offer,  and that was by watching Marshall as he listened to Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera.  Most of the time, he listened to those broadcasts over headphones (in order to hear the music in utmost clarity, without outside distraction) – typically with score or libretto in hand.    And especially the opera of the day was one of the most heartrending tragedies,  like Madama Butterfly or Suor Angelica –  or if the opera of the day featured his beloved Joan Sutherland – then without fail, Marshall at least once in the course of the broadcast would be moved to tears.  And especially at first,  I would look over at him at those moments with a look of bewilderment mixed with a bit of mild amusement – and he would usually flash me a look of mock (or was it real?) exasperation in return.  Sometimes it was because I wasn’t listening to the broadcast myself and had no idea precisely what was driving him to tears.  But on other occasions, especially once I had my own stereo,  I would sometimes be listening to the opera broadcast over my speakers while Marshall listened on his headphones – and while I would find it  incredibly lovely and touching,  I don’t ever remember being moved to tears.  I think part of it was that at that point,  I was still very much a neophyte compared to Marshall, so as I heard these performances,  it wasn’t possible for me to imagine what was actually transpiring onstage.  Moreover, I was still a somewhat immature musician who maybe hadn’t learned how to listen to music with true open-heartedness.  I don’t think I actually gave it much serious thought at the time,  but on some level I think that the sight of seeing Marshall cry during those opera broadcasts was showing me that I had much to learn about opera (and music itself) and the riches it had to offer …. and that I needed to give myself over to it in ways that I had scarcely considered.

The other night,  Marshall and I were at the Lyric Opera of Chicago,  where we have had season tickets for 27 years.  On this particular occasion, however, we were not seeing an opera per se,  but rather a concert featuring two of the most admired and exciting opera stars in the world,  soprano Renee Fleming and tenor Jonas Kaufmann.  It was a concert I almost didn’t get to attend,  because it turned out to be on a Wednesday,  which during Lent is also when church choir rehearses.  And with me being gone the next week for Carthage Choir spring tour,  I wondered how I could possibly justify missing two Wednesday nights in a row.   But as I thought about whether or not to sell my ticket or give it away,  I was sick at the thought of missing what might very well be the most exciting opera concert of my life, the kind of event that would almost certainly be – and literally be – a once in a lifetime opportunity to hear (in person) these two superstars in concert.  I simply could not miss it …. especially not this particular spring, when I was working so hard on Les Miserables.  I needed this.  And by scheduling a couple of Sunday morning rehearsals and by working ahead in our last couple of evening rehearsals,  it became possible for me to do this.  And I think it was just as well that it took a little bit of doing to make it happen, because as I settled into my seat at the Lyric,  I was even more grateful to be there than I otherwise would have been.

And then came the singing!  O my God!   Fleming and Kaufmann opened the night with the sublime love duet from Gounod’s Faust, and it was magic from the very first measures.  The first half ended with the sublime love duet from Verdi’s Otello,  which featured Fleming in one of her signature roles of Desdemona, and offered a tantalizing look at what Kaufmann’s Otello might sound like if he ever does the complete role.  Again, it was stunning-  especially the tender final measures, which I’ve never heard sung quite so exquisitely.  And rounding out the concert was the wildly passionate duet from Massenet’s Manon,  with both singers in supreme form.   It may have been a concert in formal dress rather than a fully staged performance,  but it was riveting theater – and musically it was breathtaking.  And the arias interspersed between the duets were beautifully sung as well,  with Kaufmann at the very height of his powers in arias from Carmen, Werther, and La Forza del Destino, and Renee Fleming in lovely form for an aria from Manon and in two songs, including “Danny Boy.”  By the end of the program,  the normally somewhat staid Chicago Lyric audience was going crazy.

And then came two encores, beginning with the famous waltz from Franz Lehar’s beloved operetta The Merry Widow, which the Met is mounting next year for Renee in a new production.   But what tore me to pieces was the second encore:  Marietta’s Lied from Korngold’s Die tote Stadt, which has to be one of the most sublime arias ever composed …. and a true signature song for Renee Fleming. (That’s what she sang for the Met’s historic 125th anniversary gala several years ago- and on plenty of concerts since.)   In the opera itself, the aria is actually more of a duet,  but it almost never gets sung that way – but here it was, sung for us by two of the greatest singers in the whole wide world.   If I’d been a betting man,  I would have bet big money that their last encore would be the tried and true La Traviata LIbiamo – the famous drinking song – since that’s an opera in which both singers have appeared, plus it’s a crowd pleaser.  But they bypassed the famous in favor of the sublime, and from the moment the orchestra began playing the introduction to the Korngold with the shimmering sound of the celeste,  I was in tears.  And for the entire piece,  I cried like I have never cried while listening to music.   It was a combination of the music itself – almost impossibly gorgeous – these two amazing singers who almost never have the chance to sing together –  the performance itself, which was absolutely stunning – and the fact that this whole concert was such a welcome relief in the midst of this crazily busy spring.  All I could think of was the line Peggy Fleming uttered during the Sarajevo Olympics when the British ice dancers Torvill and Dean registered perfect sixes across the board:  “we are so lucky to see this!”  she exclaimed when those numbers flashed on the screen, and everyone agreed.   And I think for all of us in the Lyric that night,  we were thinking some variation of the same thing.

Sitting next to Marshall made it even more special, because here was the guy who in so many ways helped ignite my love of opera in the first place, 35 years ago,   and with whom I have spent so many incredible nights at the opera (and a few not-so- incredible nights as well, although they can be interesting as well.)   There’s the  27 years we’ve been season ticket holders at the Lyric …. some splendid nights at Ravinia …. and that impossibly spectacular night when we attended the Metropolitan Opera for the very first time,  for the opening night of a new production of Salome.   If there’s anything better than experiencing a brilliant night at the opera,  it’s experiencing it with a cherished friend beside you.   Maybe a couple of the tears were about that as well.

pictured above:  Renee Fleming and Jonas Kaufmann, in their final bows of the evening, with conductor Sir Andrew Davis to the left.