Classical Moment Number One
In 1975 I saw Luciano Pavarotti as Manrico in Il Trovatore in San Francisco. He first sang off stage and his voice was so beautiful, it was heavenly. Then he came on stage and the audience gasped since he was rather large to be wearing tights. But at the end of the opera I cried because it was over and I wouldn’t hear that voice any more.
Classical Moment Number Two
I am an experienced opera and concert goer and have yelled more bravos/bravas/bravi than I can count. But several years ago I saw Natalie Dessay as Lucia di Lammermoor. The climax of the opera is Lucia’s mad scene – 20 minutes of acting and singing and it is always a crowd pleaser. But Ms Dessay is both a phenomenal singer and actress. At the end of the mad scene the opera house exploded which drowned out my involuntary yell of “WOW!”