Patrick Dillon discovered opera as an eleven-year-old Detroiter, saw his first staged opera at twelve, and was a regular, highly opinionated operagoer by the time he hit his mid-teens. He came to opera journalism three decades later, writing for Canada's Globe and Mail, the Chicago Tribune, American Record Guide, and Opera News and settling down as the longtime New York correspondent for Opera Canada and Scherzo in Madrid, doing his darndest not to live in the rosy operatic past.