The commercial 1972 EMI performance led by Karajan was both too airbrushed and too musically mannered. Murky “you had to be there” sound quality undermined a handful of 1970s bootleg live recordings (from Buenos Aires, Orange and the Met) costarring Birgit Nilsson. Then I stumbled upon this entire BBC broadcast, available for free online, of precisely the interpretation that had haunted me and prompted my years-long obsession: a legendary May 29, 1978, Covent Garden performance led by Colin Davis I’d attended as my first opera performance in Europe.

But rediscovering a performance that represents a seminal moment from one’s Kinderszenen 47 years after the fact can be fraught, ruined by sobering “grownup” reality checks. I still believe that this one holds up beautifully: Davis shapes the music superbly and the orchestra plays the score lovingly for him. I’ve intentionally selected Act III because I think it best showcases Vickers’ unique strengths as a singing actor. (He always “did” suffering in extremis incomparably well, even if the unique ping of his sound worked better ricocheting around a big room than it does compressed by mics.) Knie, who tires in the Act II Liebesnacht (noted in Harold Rosenthal’s review here), pulls herself together for a more than respectable Liebestod.

I’d been too excited to sleep a wink on the overnight flight from Logan to Heathrow to begin my first university b̶o̶o̶n̶d̶o̶g̶g̶l̶e̶ fellowship abroad, and had taken the tube directly upon arrival to Covent Garden to purchase a ticket in the Upper Standing Slips using my International Student ID. A friendly law student wearing binoculars offered helpful pointers and lively conversation during intermissions. He let me know that the performance coincided with Spring Bank Holiday: empty seats that he pointed out in the downstairs Stalls (center orchestra) were doubtless held by subscribers who’d left town for the long weekend. Poaching, them, however, “wasn’t done,” he dryly noted. The hell it wasn’t—I was a pushy American kid who had already mastered the art of parachuting shamelessly from Family Circle standing room at the Met to prime real estate in the Parterre. And I needed to be closer to Tristan’s pain. It was my first night in Europe and I was spending it in one of the world’s great opera houses transported by my favorite music. What 20-year-old Wagnerite would even notice jet lag when Jon Vickers is only a few feet away dying for all our sins? I’d never felt closer to heaven.