They raved in 1983 about an Aïda featuring Anna Tomowa-Sintow, whose name I’d later learn they mispronounced in our typical Midwestern way. Little did I know that her future Chicago performances would coincide with my earliest operagoing experiences. I fell in love with the sincerity of her stage presence and personal warmth she conveyed as well as the distinctive sheen that characterized the concentrated power of utterance. Domingo described her as intense in their Tosca. In this “Pur ti riveggo, mia dolce Aida” from a 1979 Munich Aïda performance with him under Riccardo Muti, her vocalism is suggestive of a lit fuse burning toward a detonation. A great Verdi singer and my favorite Aïda!