Greg Freed is an opera fan who grew up listening to Met broadcasts in Kentucky and later attended as many performances as possible at Austin Lyric Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and, for 10 years, the Metropolitan, where he occasionally reviewed under the name Maury D’Annato. He currently lives in Oakland, and was Parterre’s Bay Area critic (under his own name) for two seasons. His primary vocation is social work, and as such, has spent a decade in sentencing advocacy. Greg loves live recordings of the singers of today and those of yesteryear, with special regard for the contralto Ewa Podles.
A friend of mine tells a story: it’s 1951 and he’s waiting at the stage door of the Old Met after a matinee of Rosenkavalier. The woman in front of him says to Helen Traubel as she emerges “Oh, Madame Traubel, it was such lovely music!” and Traubel thanks her. The Octavian, let’s say Jarmila Novotna (because it’s fun to say!) comes out, and the same thing happens.
This is the tenth season of the Met’s HD broadcasts, not that I would know it. In New York there was no real reason to go, and since moving across the country altogether, I had only gone once, I think because attendance is too explicit an admission that I’m no longer a Met regular. 
Two nights in a row at the War Memorial—it’s all a mad, gay whirl! If I’d gotten an hour less sleep you’d now find me 
Gala this; gala that; who knew rich people wore clothes so badly? Freed’s Law (formulated long ago) states that every tenor you meet is going to think he’s the smart one, but there must be some corollary about every opening night opera gala sending out a bat-signal to the one socialite who thinks she’s going to Bring Back the Tiara. Friday night was the occasion not only of a gala, but also an opera by Mr. Verdi, in which people sang. 
Cher Public