For those who are fortunate enough to have been exposed to opera from a young age, the connection often lasts a lifetime. Here is the next instalment in our blog series that explores the moments when normal people became opera lovers.

---

Rochelle Abkowitz 

As a young girl growing up in the Lower East Side of NYC in the 1940s, I was fortunate to have a teacher who convinced my parents to let me take the test to attend the Hunter College High School junior high program that would lead into the high school. While there, a student teacher from the college came to my music class and sang the arias from Aida. I had wanted to sing since I was very young and even told my aunt at the age of five that I would be a singer. When I asked the young woman which high school she attended she told me it had been The High School of Music and Art. I was determined that I would attend there and began the preparations. When my parents wouldn’t sign the papers necessary for me to take the exam, I signed them myself and after the test I was accepted.

I have sung for the rest of my life and credit Aida for my good fortune. I was even a regional finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and have had church and synagogue jobs, sung opera leading roles with the Rochester Opera Theatre, and with the Pittsburgh and Syracuse symphonies.

Aida changed my life, and all for the better!!

---

Elizabeth Marcilio 

World War II was not long over when an Italian opera company came to Australia. My father met one of the tenors (Plinio Clabassi) who gave him two free tickets to Madama Butterfly. My mother, who had seen Toti Dal Monte in the role, took me, aged 10, to the performance that enchanted and imprinted me on opera for the rest of my life. It wasn't a major opera company, but I still remember the names of the principals: Aldo Feracucci was Pinkerton, Mercedes Fortunati was Madama Butterfly, Maria Huder was Suzuki, and the conductor was [Manno] Wolf-Ferrari. I have "Googled" the singers' names in vain. The entrance of Madama Butterfly remains as one of the most beautiful scenes in opera that one could ever see and hear. Since that Madame Butterfly so long ago, opera has been one of the lights of my life.

 

---

Photo credits (top - bottom): A scene from Madama Butterfly (COC, 2014), Sondra Radvanovsky in Aida (COC, 2010), (l) Elizabeth DeShong and (r) Kelly Kaduce in Madama Butterfly (COC, 2014), Photos: Michael Cooper.