For those of you who know, she was the number one fan of Renata Tebaldi and so many wonderful singers that she championed. I was so pleased to be included among them.

She loved opera so very much. She would wait backstage in rain or shine with arms filled with programs and recordings and CDs and practically anything that you wanted to have memorialized with the singers signature. For whatever reason they stopped allowing her into the house, perhaps because they felt that she was nagging the singers, and I always thought to get her in because without people like this the opera loses all its personality and charm and pretty much all of the people that show up to keep opera alive.

I never found it a bother! I actually looked forward to hearing her and seeing her and getting her hug after the show.

So many wonderful great fans from the old days are leaving and with them go the memories of all the truly truly great singing that went on in that historic house. Like La Scala they were those who heard the great singing and could keep a standard to which they would compare all the rest.

My deepest condolences to her family and may her memory always be a blessing which I can safely tell you it will always be.

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