Barbara Minghetti
Artistic Director, Teatro Sociale Como, Teatro Regio Parma
(Italy)

My first opera was La bohème, which I saw with my friend when I was very young. I sat very high, high up because I had very little money. I remember I just started crying, which was very strange for me! My friend said, “Why are you crying? You are at the opera!” I realize now that this is why I am in love with opera, because it touches you so deeply. I love the theater, but I realized that drama alone was not enough for me. I also need music. Even to this day, Puccini is still so special to me — my most loved composer.

Bibian Kalinde
President, Pan African Society for Musical Arts Education
(Zambia)

I remember my first opera perfectly because it was yesterday (June 4). It was Beth Morrison Projects’ Magdalene. I’m a music educator, so I learned about opera as a form of Baroque music, and then I’ve been teaching music and singing for the last 19 years and watching on YouTube. But this was my very first time seeing one live. It was very different from what I had read — especially the role of technology, the projections, the stage work, and the scenery. It was completely captivating, the fusion of so many art forms, even in this streamlined version.

Danny Chen
Executive Director, Kuala Lumpur City Opera
(Malaysia)

The first opera I ever saw was Puccini’s Turandot back in 2003 by the Penang Arts Council, but I actually witnessed it as a member of the chorus. At that time, I was singing with the Philharmonic Choir of Selangor and there was an audition call for an opera production. I auditioned and was selected. The music grabbed me immediately! In the chorus, we dressed up as the poor villagers of Pekino and then played the role of ministers in the riddle scene, which requires a costume change. We were sweating buckets, and my legs were shaking from standing for such a long time, but it was all extremely enjoyable.

Flavia Furtado
Executive Director, Amazonas Opera Festival
(Brazil)

The first opera I saw was in Rio, in the open air at a horse track, when I was 18 years old. The Municipal Theater of Rio was performing Turandot, and my roommate was singing in the choir. It was so beautiful! There was something special about being in nature — the mixing of the voice with the sound of waving trees. Today, I still hold some performances in the open air, and I always cry at the end. We sometimes have 10,000 people in the square outside the theater. We have always had an opera tradition in Rio because we were colonized by the Portuguese. But we are now rediscovering and rethinking our history with opera. Last year, we had 14 new titles of Brazilian opera in the country.

Galyna Grygorenko
Composer; General Producer, Open Opera Ukraine
(Ukraine)

I do not recall the title of my first opera, but I do remember my experience because it was in Odessa. My mom took me to the Opera Theater when I was four years old. When we entered this beautiful building, I was amazed at all the grandeur, the crystal lamps. It was an emotional experience. I remember not being restless or sleepy during the performance, even at that age. It was probably the first time I heard music live, and it left quite an impression. Then, it took me until I was 18 years old to see another opera. When I entered the university in Kyiv, I saw Aida. Since then, I’ve started an independent opera company in Ukraine specializing in Baroque music.

Mark Taylor
Executive Director, State Opera South Australia
(Australia)

I studied education originally, and it wasn’t until I started my first teaching job that I saw my first live opera. It was a bare-bones production of Der Fledermaus at a school in the Australian Outback where there were 11 kids enrolled. I remember sitting on the lawn with beers in the open air watching them sing and play piano in the back of a truck. And then my next one was The Marriage of Figaro at Opera Australia that same year, with a chamber orchestra in a shearing shed. Later, my first full opera was in Brisbane: Rigoletto in a 2,000-seat theater. It was the music that I fell in love with first, as I’d listened to it so much as a child.