Classical Act

Dear Diary:

I grew up in a small town in Kentucky in the 1950s. My parents knew nothing about classical music, but they thought they should offer it to their children. They acquired a long-playing record for that purpose, to no avail. At college, in Virginia, I was required to take a music appreciation class. Again, it got a big yawn from me.

In 1965, having moved to New York City in an act of blind optimism, I was riding in a yellow cab when I heard something on the radio that electrified me. I had to know what it was. I asked the driver.

“That’s Bach,” he said.

I have to hear a lot more of that, I thought. And I did.

Years later, I met a man through the Classical Music Lovers’ Exchange. We had both listed “Don Carlo” as our favorite opera. I lived near Lincoln Center, and when he went to the opera with his brother, his brother would leave before the last act, handing me his ticket on the way out.

The man, whom I later married, had second-acted Broadway plays as a Stuyvesant High School student. Now I was last-acting the Metropolitan Opera.

— Sara Wotman