“I LOVE YOU!” should sound different from “and NOW YOU DIE!”

I have a great job. I’m an opera timpanist, and I get to do that at the Metropolitan Opera — the biggest performing arts institution in the western hemisphere — home to the grandest of grand opera. And I do mean grand opera. It’s basically western civilization’s most opulent expression of human drama. Almost nothing else can compare in terms of scale, scope, depth, integration, and raw emotional impact. All of our most essential human stories are there. You can always find parallels to your own life in the great works of Verdi …

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