Unforgettable

The first time you see any great opera is memorable, I think. It's like coming into Paris or Stonehenge or the Andes for the first time. No matter how often you return, how much you feel your love or admiration deepen, you can only experience that initial reaction once.

And sometimes, not often, it makes a story worth telling. Andy Ross, an Oakland-based literary agent, told me, "I'm the perfect Wagnerite." He's seen Wagner's operas countless times, and that includes five complete Ring Cycles. But his favorite production of any Wagner opera was his first. "It was Die Walkure at the Met in 1966 or '67," he says. "My uncle gave me a ticket. It turned out I was in the front row, center, about eight feet from the conductor, Herbert von Karajan. All the Wagnerites were offering to pay me for my seat. I found out why when someone told me that the elderly woman sitting next to me was Madame Maria Jeritza, the greatest Sieglinde of the 1920s [pictured above in her prime]. She whispered along with the role and was very impressed with the production."

Sieglinde is a big, expressive role: She must convey resignation and fear (of her husband, Hunding), dawning hope and love (for Siegmund, that opera's hero), strength and fortitude as she learns she carries Siegmund's child and must carry on without him. It's so moving to picture the aged soprano, so many years after the spotlight dimmed, singing in a whisper with Regine Crespin, one of the reigning sopranos of her era. Many consider Crespin the greatest French Wagnerian soprano of the century. The other outstanding Wagnerian sopranos were from Scandinavia--like Birgit Nilsson, whom Andy saw as Brunnhilde--Germany, Austria, or the U.S.

No wonder Andy never forgot his first Die Walkure. What I want to know is, what is the difference between a Wagnerian and a Wagnerite?

Background music: Regine Crespin as Sieglinde.