• "An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house."


    The first time I went to an official concert was on my fourteenth birthday. I grew up with parents loving the classical music, and so, I had always enjoyed the chills that ran up my arm when the climax of the song began, or the opera singers that cried out the Italian words for their lost lover. I had taken voice lessons since I was very small, and I had always thought of singing as merely a hobby, and nothing more.

    That night, when my parents had taken me to the opera concert, I could feel the stares of the adults boring into my back. I could almost hear the words they so wanted to speak: “What is a child doing in such a concert?”

    Yet, I paid no mind, as my mother and father took their seats right beside me in our balcony. My father was wearing a handsome tuxedo, and my mother had on a very beautiful, silk-white dress that fell elegantly around her body. I, myself, had on a lavender dress that reached up to my knees, not half as refined as my mother or father’s wear.

    But I sat there quietly, leaning forward as the beginning of the very sad tale of Götterdämmerung; which was an adaptation of the original opera. I did cry at the very end, my heart was wrenching for the sudden fall of Siegfried. Yet, I had grown a bit in the hours that passed watching Götterdämmerung. Throughout the entire opera, my eyes only watched the one who had played the part of Siegfried. He was very handsome, very grown, and his voice was handsome just like the rest of him. He was indeed a man, at the age of 20, and I had fallen in love with not only the man himself, but his voice as well. After that concert, I went to many more of his after that.

    His name was Marcus Bistow. He was known for his many voices, because he could range from a bass to a spinto-tenor, which is why so many were after him. From the first time I saw him up on stage at the Götterdämmerung concert, I decided then that I would take my singing to a whole other level. I was going to sing by Mr. Marcus’ side.

    On July 21, 1884 my dream shattered. Marcus Bistow died of poisoning. I was devastated.